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THE    LIFE    OF    PASTEUR 


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THE 
LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

BY     RENE     VALLERY-RADOT 


TRANSLATED   FROM   THE 

FRENCH  BY  MRS.  R.  L. 

DEVONSHIRE 


L'ceuvre  de  Pasteur  est  admirable ;  elle  montre  son 
genie,  mais  il  faut  avoir  vecu  dans  son  intimite  pour 
connaitre  toute  la  bonte  de  son  cceur. — Dr.  Rqux. 


POPULAR  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   &   COMPANY 

1909 


Sbn 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

1822—1843 

Origin  of  the  Pasteur  Family,  1 — Jean  Joseph  Pasteur,  a  Conscript  in 
1811;  Sergeant-major  in  the  3rd  Infantry  Regiment,  3;  a  Knight 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  4;  his  Marriage,  5;  the  Tannery  at  Dole, 
6 — Birth  of  Louis  Pasteur,  his  Childhood  and  Youth,  6.  Studies  in 
Arbois  College,  7.  Departure  for  Paris,  11.  Arrival  in  Paris,  11; 
the  Barbet  Boarding  School,  Home  Sickness,  11.  Return  to  Jura, 
Pasteur  a  Portrait  Painter,  12;  enters  Besan9on  Royal  College,  13; 
a  Bachelier  es  Lettres,  a  Preparation  Master,  14 ;  his  Readings,  15. 
Friendship  with  Chappuis,  18 ;  a  Bachelier  es  Sciences,  20 ;  Pasteur 
admitted  to  the  Ecole  Normale,  22;  Sorbonne  Lectures,  Impression 
produced  by  J.  B.  Dumas,  21. 

CHAPTER   II 

1844^1849 

First  Crystallographic  Researches,  26;  Pasteur  a  Curator  in  Balard's 
Laboratory,  works  with  Auguste  Laurent,  32.  Chemistry  and 
Physics  Theses,  34.  Pasteur  reads  a  Paper  at  the  Academie  des 
Sciences,  36.  February  days,  1848,  37.  Molecular  Dissymmetry, 
38;  J.  J.  Biot's  Emotion  at  Pasteur's  first  Discovery,  41.  Pasteur 
Professor  of  Physics  at  Dijon,  43.  Professor  of  Chemistry  at  the 
Strasburg  Faculty,  his  Friend  Bertin,  45;  M.  Laurent,  Rector  of 
the  Strasburg  Academy,  47;  Pasteur's  Marriage,  51. 

CHAPTER   III 

1850—1854 

Disgrace  of  tlie  Strasburg  Rector,  54.  Letter  from  Biot  to  Pasteur's 
Father,  57.  Letter  from  J.  B.  Dumas,  60.  Interview  with  Mitscher- 
lich,  61.  Pasteur  in  quest  of  Racemic  Acid,  in  Germany,  Austria 
and  Bohemia,  62.  Pasteur  a  Knight  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  70. 
Biot's  Congratulations,  70.     Proposed  Work,  72. 

CHAPTER   IV 

185&— 1859 
Pasteur  Dean   of  the  new  Lille  Faculty,   75;   his  Teaching,   77;    First 
Studies  on  Fermentations,  79,     First  Candidature  for  the  x^cademy 


vi  CONTENTS 

of  Sciences,  81.  Lactic  Fermentation,  83.  Pasteur  Administrator 
of  the  Ecole  Normale,  84.  Alcoholic  Fermentation,  85.  Death  of 
Pasteur's  eldest  Daughter,  86. 


CHAPTER   V 

1860—1864 

So-called  spontaneous  Greneration,  88.  Polemics  and  Experiments,  92. 
Renewed  Candidature  for  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  100.  Lectures 
on  Crystallography,  102.  Pasteur  elected  a  Member  of  the  Academie 
des  Sciences,  103.  Conversation  with  Napoleon  III,  104.  Lecture 
at  the  Sorbonne  on  so-called  spontaneous  Generation,  106.  Pasteur 
and  the  Students  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  109.  Discussions  raised 
by  the  question  of  spontaneous  Greneration,  111.  Studies  on 
Wine,  113. 


CHAPTER   VI 

1865—1870 

The  Silkworm  Disease;  Pasteur  sent  to  Alais,  115.  Death  of  Jean 
Joseph  Pasteur,  118.  Return  to  Paris,  121;  Pasteur's  Article  on 
J.  B.  Dumas'  Edition  of  Lavoisier's  Works,  122.  Death  of  his 
Daughter  Camille,  123.  Candidature  of  Ch.  Robin  for  the  Academie 
des  Sciences,  124.  Letters  exchanged  between  Ste.  Beuve  and 
Pasteur,  124.  The  Cholera,  126.  Pasteur  at  Compiegne  Palace, 
127.  Return  to  the  Gard,  130;  Pasteur's  Collaborators,  130.  Death 
of  his  Daughter  Cecile,  131.  Letter  to  Duruy,  131.  Publication  of 
the  Studies  on  Wine,  133.  Pasteur's  Article  on  Claude  Bernard's 
Work,  134.  Pasteur's  Work  in  the  South  of  France,  138.  Letter 
from  Duruy,  139.  Pasteur  a  Laureate  of  the  Exhibition,  140; 
solemn  Distribution  of  Rewards,  141.  Ste.  Beuve  at  the  Senate, 
142.  Disturbance  at  the  Ecole  Normale,  143.  Pasteur's  Letter  to 
Napoleon  III,  147.  Lecture  on  the  Manufacture  of  Vinegar  at 
Orleans,  148.  Council  of  Scientists  at  the  Tuileries,  154.  Studies 
on  Silkworm  Diseases  (continued),  155.  Heating  of  Wines,  157. 
Paralytic  Stroke,  160 ;  Illness,  161 ;  private  Reading,  163.  Enlarge- 
ment of  the  Laboratory,  164.  Pasteur  in  the  South,  166.  Success 
of  his  Method  of  opposing  Silkworm  Diseases,  168.  Pasteur  at 
Villa  Vicentina,  Austria,  173.     Interview  with  Liebig,  176. 


CHAPTER   VII 

1870—1872 

Pasteur  in  Strasburg,  177 ;  the  War,  179 ;  Pasteur  at  Arbois,  180.  The 
Academie  des  Sciences  during  the  Siege  of  Paris,  186.  Pasteur 
returns  his  Doctor's  Diploma  to  the  Bonn  Faculty  of  Medicine,  189. 
Retreat  of  Bourbaki's  Army  Corps,  192 ;  Pasteur  at  Pontarlier, 
192.     Pasteur  at  Lyons,  194.     "Why  France  found  no  superior  Men 


CONTENTS  vii 

in  the  Hours  of  Peril,"  194.  Proposed  Studies,  198.  Professorship 
offered  to  Pasteur  at  Pisa,  200;  his  Refusal,  200.  The  Prussians 
at  Arbois,  201.  Pasteur  and  his  Pupil  Raulin,  203.  Pasteur  at 
Clermont  Ferrand;  stays  with  his  Pupil  M.  Duclaus,  206.  Studies 
on  Beer,  207.  Visit  to  London  Breweries,  210.  Renewed  Discus- 
sions at  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  216. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

1873—1877 
Pasteur  elected  to  the  Academie  do  Medecine,  225.  General  Condition 
of  Medicine,  226.  Surgery  before  Pasteur,  234.  Influence  of  his 
Work,  236.  Letter  from  Lister,  238.  Debates  at  the  Academie  de 
Medecine,  240;  Science  and  Religion,  244.  National  Testimonial, 
245.  Pasteur  a  Candidate  for  the  Senate,  248.  Speech  at  the  Milan 
Congress  of  Sericiculture,  251.  Letter  from  Tyndall,  252.  Dis- 
cussion with  Dr.  Bastian,  253. 


CHAPTER   IX 

1877—1879 

Charbon,  or  Splenic  Fever,  257;  Pasteur  studies  it,  259.  Traditional 
Medicine  and  Pastorian  Doctrines,  263.  Progress  of  Surgery,  266. 
The  word  Microbe  invented,  266;  renewed  Attacks  against  Pasteur, 
267.  Charbon  given  to  Hens — experiment  before  the  Academie  de 
Medecine,  268.  Pasteur's  Note  on  the  Germ  Theory,  271.  Cam- 
paign of  Researches  on  Charbon,  275.  Critical  Examination  of  a 
posthumous  Note  by  Claude  Bernard,  281.  Pasteur  in  the  Hospitals, 
289;  Puerperal  Fever,  289. 


CHAPTER  X 

1880—1882 

Chicken  Cholera,  297.  Attenuation  of  the  Virus,  299.  Suggested  Re- 
searches on  the  bubonic  Plague,  301.  The  Share  of  Earthworms 
in  the  Development  of  Charbon,  304;  an  Incident  at  the  Academie 
de  Medecine,  309.  The  Vaccine  of  Charbon,  311 ;  public  Experiment 
at  Pouilly  le  Fort  on  the  Vaccination  of  Splenic  Fever,  316.  First 
Experiments  on  Hydrophobia,  318.  Death  of  Sainte-Claire  Deville, 
326;  Pasteur's  Speech,  327.  Pasteur  at  the  London  Medical  Con- 
gress, 329;  Virchow  and  Anti-vivisection,  332.  Yellow  Fever,  338; 
Pasteur  at  Pauillac,  338. 


CHAPTER  XI 

1882—1884 

Pasteur  elected  a  Member  of  the  Academie  Fran9aise,  341 ;  his  Opinions 
on  Positivism,  342;   J.  B.  Dumas  and  Nisard,  his  Sponsors,  344; 


viii  CONTENTS 

Pasteur  welcomed  by  Renan  into  the  Academie  Fran9aise,  346. 
Homage  from  Melun,  from  Aubenas,  350 ;  Pasteur  at  Nimes  and 
at  Montpellier,  353.  Speech  of  J.  B.  Dumas,  354;  Pasteur's 
Answer,  355.  Pasteur  at  the  Geneva  Conference  of  Hygiene,  358. 
Studies  on  the  Rouget  of  Pigs — Journey  to  Bollene,  360.  Typhoid 
Fever  and  the  Champions  of  old  Medical  Methods,  364.  Pasteur 
and  the  Turin  Veterinary  School,  368.  Marks  of  Gratitude  from 
Agriculturists,  372;  Pasteur  at  Aurillac,  373.  Another  Testimonial 
of  national  Gratitude,  374 ;  a  commemorative  Plate  on  the  House 
where  Pasteur  was  born,  376 ;  his  Speech  at  the  Ceremony,  377. 
Cholera,  378;  French  Mission  to  Alexandria,  379.  Death  of 
Thuillier,  380.  J.  B.  Dumas'  last  Letter  to  Pasteur,  383.  Third 
Centenary  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh — the  French  Delegation, 
384;  Ovation  to  Pasteur,  386;  Pasteur's  Speech,  386. 


CHAPTER   XII 

1884—1885 

The  Hydrophobia  Problem,  390;  preventive  Inoculations  on  Dogs,  395. 
Experiments  on  Hydrophobia  verified  by  a  Commission,  396.  The 
Copenhagen  Medical  Congress,  Pasteur  in  Denmark,  399.  In- 
stallation at  Villeneuve  I'Etang  of  a  Branch  Establishment  of 
Pasteur's  Laboratory,  406.  Former  Remedies  against  Hydrophobia, 
407.     Kennels  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  410. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

1885—1888 

First  Antirabic  Inoculation  on  Man,  414 ;  the  little  Alsatian  Boy,  Joseph 
Meister,  415.  Pasteur  at  Arbois;  his  Speech  for  the  Welcome  of 
Joseph  Bertrand,  succeeding  J.  B.  Dumas  at  the  Academie  Fran- 
9aise,  418.  Perraud  the  Sculptor,  421.  Inoculation  of  the  Shepherd 
Jupille,  422 ;  the  Discovery  of  the  Preventive  Treatment  of  Rabies 
announced  to  the  Academie  des  Sciences  and  the  Academie  de 
Medecine,  422.  Death  of  Louise  Pelletier,  426;  Pasteur's  Solici- 
tude for  inoculated  Patients,  427.  Foundation  of  the  Pasteur 
Institute,  428 ;  the  Russians  from  Smolensk,  429 ;  English  Commis- 
sion for  the  Verification  of  the  Inoculations  against  Hydrophobia, 
430.  Fete  at  the  Trocadero,  431.  Temporary  Buildings  in  the  Rue 
Vauquelin  for  the  Treatment  of  Hydrophobia,  432.  Ill-health  of 
Pasteur,  433 ;  his  Stay  at  Bordighera,  434.  Foundation  of  the 
Annals  of  the  Pasteur  Institute,  434.  Discussions  on  Rabies  at  the 
Academie  de  Medecine,  434.  Earthquake  at  Bordighera,  436. 
Pasteur  returns  to  France,  437.  Report  of  the  English  Commission 
on  the  Treatment  of  Rabies,  437.  Pasteur  elected  Permanent 
Secretary  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  439;  his  Resignation,  439, 
Inauguration  of  the  Pasteur  Institute,  440. 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XIV 

1889—1895 

Influence  of  Pasteur's  Labours,  445  j  his  Jubilee,  447;  Speech,  450. 
Pasteur's  Name  given  to  a  District  in  Canada  and  to  a  Village  in 
.Algeria,  451.  Diphtheria,  M.  Roux'  Studies  in  Serotherapy,  453; 
Pasteur  at  Lille ;  Lecture  by  M.  Roux  on  Serotherapy,  456 ;  repeated 
at  the  Buda-Pesth  Congress,  456.  Subscription  for  the  Organiza- 
tion of  the  Antidiphtheritic  Treatment,  456.  Pasteur's  Disciples, 
457.  Pasteur's  Illness,  458;  Visit  from  Alexandre  Dumas,  460; 
Visit  from  former  Ecole  Normale  Students,  460.-  Pasteur  refuses  a 
German  Decoration,  461.  Conversations  with  Chappuis,  462.  De- 
parture for  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  462;  last  Weeks,  463.  Project  for 
a  Pasteur  Hospital,  464.     Death  of  Pasteur,  464. 

Index      465 


THE     LIFE    OF    PASTEUR 


CHAPTEE    I 

1822—1843 

The  origin  of  even  the  humblest  famihes  can  be  traced 
back  by  persevering  search  through  the  ancient  parochial 
registers.  Thus  the  name  of  Pasteur  is  to  be  found  written 
at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  the  old  registers 
of  the  Priory  of  Mouthe,  in  the  province  of  Franche  Comte. 
The  Pasteurs  were  tillers  of  the  soil,  and  originally  formed  a 
sort  of  tribe  in  the  small  village  of  Keculfoz ,  dependent  on  the 
Priory,  but  they  gradually  dispersed  over  the  country. 

The  registers  of  Mieges,  near  Nozeroy,  contain  an  entry 
of  the  marriage  of  Denis  Pasteur  and  Jeanne  David,  dated 
February  9,  1682.  This  Denis,  after  whom  the  line  of 
Pasteur's  ancestors  follows  in  an  unbroken  record,  lived  in  the 
village  of  Plenisette,  where  his  eldest  son  Claude  was  born  in 
1683.  Denis  afterward  sojourned  for  some  time  in  the  village 
of  Douay,  and  ultimately  forsaking  the  valley  of  Mieges  came 
to  Lemuy,  where  he  worked  as  a  miller  for  Claude  Frangois 
Count  of  Udressier,  a  noble  descendant  of  a  secretary  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  V. 

Lemuy  is  surrounded  by  wide  plains  affording  pasture  for 
herds  of  oxen.  In  the  distance  the  pine  trees  of  the  forest  of 
Joux  stand  close  together,  like  the  ranks  of  an  immense  army, 
their  dark  masses  deepening  the  azure  of  the  horizon.  It  was 
in  those  widespreading  open  lands  that  Pasteur's  ancestors  lived. 
Near  the  church,  overshadowed  by  old  beech  and  lime  trees,  a 
tombstone  is  to  be  found  overgrown  with  grass.  Some 
members  of  the  family  lie  under  that  slab  naively  inscribed  : 
' '  Here  lie ,  each  by  the  side  of  the  others  ..." 

In  1716,  in  the  mill  at  Lemuy,  ruins  of  which  still  exist, 
the  marriage  contract  of  Claude  Pasteur  was  drawn  up  and 
signed  in  the  presence  of  Henry  Girod,  Koyal  notary  of  Salins. 
The  father  and  mother  declared  themselves  unable  to  write, 

B 


2  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

but  we  have  the  signatures  of  the  affianced  couple,  Claude 
Pasteur  and  Jeanne  Belle,  affixed  to  the  record  of  the  quaint 
betrothal  oath  of  the  time.  This  Claude  was  in  his  turn  a 
miller  at  Lemuy,  though  at  his  death  in  1746  he  is  only 
mentioned  as  a  labourer  in  the  parish  register.  He  had  eight 
children,  the  youngest,  whose  name  was  Claude  Etienne,  and 
who  was  born  in  the  village  of  Supt,  a  few  kilometres  from 
Lemuy,  being  Louis  Pasteur's  great-grandfather. 

What  ambition,  what  love  of  adventures  induced  him  to 
leave  the  Jura  plains  to  come  down  to  Salins?  A  desire  for 
independence  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word.  According  to 
the  custom  then  still  in  force  in  Franche  Comte  (in  con- 
tradiction to  the  name  of  that  province,  as  Voltaire  truly 
remarks),  there  were  yet  some  serfs,  that  is  to  say,  people 
legally  incapable  of  disposing  of  their  goods  or  of  their  persons. 
They  were  part  of  the  possessions  of  a  nobleman  or  of  the 
lands  of  a  convent  or  monastery.  Denis  Pasteur  and  his  son 
had  been  serfs  of  the  Counts  of  Udressier.  Claude  Etienne 
desired  to  be  freed  and  succeeded  in  achieving  this  at  the  age 
of  thirty,  as  is  proved  by  a  deed,  dated  March  20,  1763,  drawn 
up  in  the  presence  of  the  Eoyal  notary,  Claude  Jarry.  Messire 
Philippe-Marie-Fran9ois,  Count  of  Udressier,  Lord  of  Ecleux, 
Crama'ns,  Lemuy  and  other  places,  consented  "by  special 
grace  "  to  free  Claude  Etienne  Pasteur,  a  tanner,  of  Salins, 
his  serf.  The  deed  stipulated  that  Claude  Etienne  and  his 
unborn  posterity  should  henceforth  be  enfranchised  from  the 
stain  of  mortmain.  Four  gold  pieces  of  twenty-four  livres 
were  paid  then  and  there  in  the  mansion  of  the  Count  of 
Udressier  by  the  said  Pasteur. 

The  following  year,  he  married  Francoise  Lambert.  After 
setting  up  together  a  small  tannery  in  the  Faubourg  Champ- 
tave  they  enjoyed  the  fairy  tale  ideal  of  happiness  :  they  had 
ten  children.  The  third,  Jean  Henri,  through  whom  this 
genealogy  continues,  was  born  in  1769.  On  June  25,  1779, 
letters  giving  Claude  Etienne  Pasteur  the  freedom  of  the  city 
of  Salins  were  delivered  to  him  by  the  Town  Council. 

Jean  Henri  Pasteur,  in  his  twentieth  year,  went  to 
Besan9on  to  seek  his  fortune  as  a  tanner,  but  was  not  success- 
ful. His  wife,  Gabrielle  Jourdan,  died  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
and  he  married  again,  but  himself  died  at  twenty-seven, 
leaving  one  little  son  by  his  first  marriage,  Jean  Joseph 
Pasteur,  born   March  16,  1791.     This  child,  who  was  to  be 


1822—1843  3 

Louis  Pasteur's  father,  was  taken  charge  of  by  his  grand- 
mother at  SaHns ;  later  on,  his  father's  sisters,  one  roarried  to 
a  wood  merchant  named  Chamecin,  and  the  other  to  Phihbert 
Bourgeois,  Chamecin 's  partner,  adopted  the  orphan.  He  was 
carefully  brought  up,  but  without  much  learning;  it  was 
considered  sufficient  in  those  days  to  be  able  to  read  the 
Emperor's  bulletins;  the  rest  did  not  seem  to  matter  very 
much.  Besides,  Jean  Joseph  had  to  earn  his  living  at  the 
tanner's  trade,  which  had  been  his  father's  and  his  grand- 
father's before  him. 

Jean  Joseph  was  drawn  as  a  conscript  in  1811,  and  went 
through  the  Peninsular  War  in  1812  and  1813.  He  belonged 
to  the  3rd  Eegiment  of  the  Line,  whose  mission  was  to  pursue 
in  the  northern  Spanish  provinces  the  guerillas  of  the  famous 
Espoz  y  Mina.  A  legend  grew  round  this  wonderful  man ;  he 
was  said  to  make  his  own  gunpowder  in  the  bleak  mountain 
passes ;  his  innumerable  partisans  were  supplied  with  arms  and 
ammunition  by  the  English  cruisers.  He  dragged  women  and 
old  men  after  him,  and  little  children  acted  as  his  scouts. 
Once  or  twice  however,  in  May,  1812,  the  terrible  Mina  was 
very  nearly  caught ;  but  in  July  he  was  again  as  powerful  as 
ever.  The  French  had  to  organize  mobile  columns  to  again 
occupy  the  coast  and  establish  communications  with  Prance. 
There  was  some  serious  fighting.  Mina  and  his  followers  were 
incessantly  harassing  the  small  French  contingent  of  the  3rd 
and  4th  Eegiments,  which  were  almost  alone.  "  How  many 
traits  of  bravery,"  writes  Tissot,  "will  remain  unknown  which 
on  a  larger  field  would  have  been  rewarded  and  honoured  !  " 

The  records  of  the  3rd  Eegiment  allow  us  to  follow  step  by 
step  this  vahant  little  troop,  and  among  the  rank  and  file, 
doing  his  duty  steadily  through  terrible  hardships,  that  private 
soldier  (a  corporal  in  July,  1812,  and  a  sergeant  in  October, 
1813)  whose  name  was  Pasteur.  The  battalion  returned  to 
France  at  the  end  of  January,  1814.  It  formed  a  part  of  that 
Leval  division  which,  numbering  barely  8,000  men,  had  to 
fight  at  Bar-sur-Aube  against  an  army  of  40,000  enemies.  The 
3rd  Eegiment  was  called  "brave  amongst  the  brave."  "If 
Napoleon  had  had  none  but  such  soldiers,"  writes  Thiers  in 
his  History  of  the  Consulate  and  the  Empire,  "  the  result  of 
that  great  struggle  would  certainly  have  been  different."  The 
Emperor,  touched  by  so  much  courage,  distributed  crosses 
among  the  men.     Pasteur  was  made  a  sergeant-major  on  March 

B  2 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

10,  1814,  and  received,  two  days  later,  the  cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour. 

At  the  battle  of  Arcis-sur-Aube  (March  21)  the  Leva!  division 
had  again  to  stand  against  50,000  men — Russians,  Austrians, 
Bavarians,  and  Wurtembergers.  Pasteur's  battalion,  the  1st 
of  the  3rd  Regiment,  came  back  to  St.  Dizier  and  went  on  by 
forced  marches  to  Fontainebleau,  where  Napoleon  had  con- 
centrated all  his  forces,  arriving  on  April  4.  The  battalion  was 
now  reduced  to  eight  officers  and  276  men.  The  next  day,  at 
twelve  o'clock,  the  Leval  division  and  the  remnant  of  the  7th 
corps  were  gathered  in  the  yard  of  the  Cheval  Blanc  Inn  and 
were  reviewed  by  Napoleon.  The  attitude  of  these  soldiers, 
who  had  heroically  fought  in  Spain  and  in  France,  and  who 
were  still  offering  their  passionate  devotion,  gave  him  a  few 
moments'  illusion.  Their  enthusiasm  and  acclamations  con- 
trasted with  the  coldness,  the  reserve,  the  almost  insubordina- 
tions of  Generals  like  Ney,  Lefebvre,  Oudinot  and  MacDonald, 
who  had  just  declared  that  to  march  on  Paris  would  be  folly. 

Marmont's  defection  hastened  events ;  the  Emperor,  seeing 
himself  forsaken,  abdicated.  Jean  Joseph  Pasteur  had  not,  like 
Captain  Coignet,  the  sad  privilege  of  witnessing  the  Emperor's 
farewell,  his  battalion  having  been  sent  into  the  department  of 
Eure  on  April  9.  On  April  23  the  white  cockade  replaced  the 
tricolour. 

On  May  12,  1814,  a  royal  order  gave  to  the  3rd  line  Regiment 
the  name  of  "  Regiment  Dauphin  "  ;  it  was  reorganized  at 
Douai,  where  Sergeant-major  Pasteur  received  his  discharge 
from  the  service.  He  returned  to  Besan^on  with  grief  and 
anger  in  his  heart  :  for  him,  as  for  many  others  risen  from  the 
people.  Napoleon  was  a  demi-god.  Lists  of  victories,  principles 
of  equality,  new  ideas  scattered  throughout  the  nations,  had 
followed  each  other  in  dazzling  visions.  It  was  a  cruel  trial 
for  half -pay  officers,  old  sergeants,  grenadiers,  peasant  soldiers, 
to  come  down  from  this  imperial  epic  to  every-day  monotony, 
police  supervision,  and  the  anxieties  of  poverty;  their  wounded 
patriotism  was  embittered  by  feelings  of  personal  humiliation. 
Jean  Joseph  resigned  himself  to  his  fate  and  went  back  to  his 
former  trade.  The  return  from  Elba  was  a  ray  of  joy  and  hope 
in  his  obscure  life,  only  to  be  followed  by  renewed  darkness. 

He  was  living  in  the  Faubourg  Champtave  a  solitary  life  in 
accordance  with  his  tastes  and  character  when  this  solitude 
was  interrupted  for  an  instant.     The  Mayor  of  Salins,  a  knight 


1822—1843  5 

of  Malta  and  an  ardent  royalist,  ordered  all  the  late  soldiers  of 
Napoleon,  the  "  brigands  de  la  Loire  "  as  they  were  now  called, 
to  bring  their  sabres  to  the  Mairie.  Joseph  Pasteur  reluctantly 
obeyed ;  but  when  he  heard  that  these  glorious  weapons  were 
destined  to  police  service,  and  would  be  used  by  police  agents, 
further  submission  seemed  to  him  intolerable.  He  recognized 
his  own  sergeant-major's  sabre,  which  had  just  been  given  to 
an  agent,  and,  springing  upon  the  man,  wrested  the  sword 
from  him.  Great  excitement  ensued — a  mixture  of  indigna- 
tion, irritation  and  repressed  enthusiasm;  the  numerous  Bona- 
partists  in  the  town  began  to  gather  together.  An  Austrian 
regiment  was  at  that  time  still  garrisoned  in  the  town.  The 
Mayor  appealed  to  the  colonel,  asking  him  to  repress  this  dis- 
obedience ;  but  the  Austrian  officer  refused  to  interfere,  declar- 
ing that  he  both  understood  and  approved  the  military  feelings 
which  actuated  the  ex-sergeant-major.  Pasteur  was  allowed  to 
keep  his  sword,  and  returned  home  accompanied  by  sympa- 
thizers who  were  perhaps  more  noisily  enthusiastic  than  he 
could  have  wished. 

Having  peacefully  resumed  his  work  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  neighbouring  family  of  gardeners,  w^hose  garden  faced 
his  tannery  on  the  other  bank  of  the  "  Furieuse,"  a  river  rarely 
deserving  its  name.  From  the  steps  leading  to  the  water  Jean 
Joseph  Pasteur  often  used  to  watch  a  young  girl  working  in  the 
garden  at  early  dawn.  She  soon  perceived  that  the  "old 
soldier  " — very  young  still ;  he  was  but  twenty-five  years  old — 
was  interested  in  her  every  movement.  Her  name  was  Jeanne 
Etiennette  Eoqui. 

Her  parents,  natives  of  Marnoz,  a  village  about  four  kilo- 
metres from  Salins,  belonged  to  one  of  the  most  ancient 
plebeian  families  of  the  country.  The  Salins  archives  mention 
a  Eoqui  working  in  vineyards  as  far  back  as  1555,  and  in  1659 
there  were  Eoqui  lampmakers  and  plumbers.  The  members  of 
this  family  were  in  general  so  much  attached  to  each  other  that 
"to  love  like  the  Eoqui"  had  become  proverbial;  their  wills 
and  testaments  mentioned  legacies  or  gifts  from  brother  to 
brother,  uncle  to  nephevv^.  In  1815  the  father  and  mother  of 
Jeanne  Etiennette  were  living  very  quietly  in  the  old  Salins 
faubourg.  Their  daughter  was  modest,  intelligent  and  kind; 
Jean  Joseph  Pasteur  asked  for  her  hand  in  marriage.  They 
seemed  made  for  each  other ;  the  difference  in  their  natures 
only  strengthened  their  mutual  affection  :   he  was  reserved, 


6  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

almost  secretive,  with  a  slow  and  careful  mind  apparently 
absorbed  in  his  own  inner  life;  she  was  very  active,  full  of 
imagination,  and  ready  enthusiasm. 

The  young  couple  migrated  to  Dole  and  settled  down  in  the 
Eue  des  Tanneurs.  Their  first  child  only  lived  a  few  months ; 
in  1818  a  little  daughter  came.  Four  years  later  in  a  small 
room  of  their  humble  home ,  on  Friday ,  December  27 ,  1822 ,  at 
2  a.m.,  Louis  Pasteur  was  born. 

Two  daughters  were  born  later — one  at  Dole  and  the  other 
at  Marnoz,  in  the  house  of  the  Eoqui.  Jean  Joseph  Pasteur's 
mother-in-law,  now  a  widow,  considering  that  her  great  age  no 
longer  allowed  her  to  administer  her  fortune,  had  divided  all 
she  possessed  between  her  son  Jean  Claude  Eoqui,  a  landed 
proprietor  at  Marnoz,  and  Jeanne  Etiennette  her  daughter. 

Thus  called  away  from  Dole  by  family  interests,  Jean  Joseph 
Pasteur  came  to  live  at  Marnoz.  The  place  was  not  very 
favourable  to  his  trade,  though  a  neighbouring  brook  rendered 
the  establishment  of  a  tannery  possible.  The  house,  though 
many  times  altered,  still  bears  the  name  of  "  Maison  Pasteur." 
On  one  of  the  inner  doors  the  veteran,  who  had  a  taste  for 
painting,  had  depicted  a  soldier  in  an  old  uniform  now  become 
a  peasant  and  tilling  the  soil.  This  figure  stands  against  a 
background  of  grey  sky  and  distant  hills ;  leaning  on  his  spade 
the  man  suspends  his  labours  and  dreams  of  past  glories.  It  is 
easy  to  criticize  the  faults  in  the  painting,  but  the  sentimental 
allegory  is  full  of  feeling. 

Louis  Pasteur's  earliest  recollections  dated  from  that  time ; 
he  could  remember  running  joyously  along  the  Aiglepierre  road. 
The  Pasteur  family  did  not  remain  long  at  Marnoz .  A  tannery 
was  to  let  in  the  neighbourhood  by  the  town  of  Arbois,  near  the 
bridge  which  crosses  the  Cuisance,  and  only  a  few  kilometres 
from  the  source  of  the  river.  The  house,  behind  its  modest 
frontage,  presented  the  advantage  of  a  yard  where  pits  had 
been  dug  for  the  preparation  of  the  skins.  Joseph  Pasteur 
took  this  little  house  and  settled  there  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren. 

Louis  Pasteur  was  sent  at  first  to  the  "  Ecole  Primaire  " 
attached  to  the  college  of  Arbois.  Mutual  teaching  was  then 
the  fashion ;  scholars  were  divided  into  groups  :  one  child 
taught  the  rudiments  of  reading  to  others,  who  then  spelt  aloud 
in  a  sort  of  sing-song.  The  master,  M.  Eenaud,  went  from 
group  to  group  designating  the  monitors.     Louis  soon  desired 


1822—1843  7 

to  possess  this  title,  perhaps  all  the  more  so  because  he  was 
the  smallest  scholar.  But  those  who  would  decorate  the  early 
years  of  Louis  Pasteur  with  wonderful  legends  would  be  dis- 
appointed :  when  a  little  later  he  attended  the  daily  classes  at 
the  Arbois  college  he  belonged  merely  to  the  category  of  good 
average  pupils.  He  took  several  prizes  without  much  diffi- 
culty;  he  rather  liked  buying  new  lesson  books,  on  the  first 
page  of  which  he  proudly  wrote  his  name.  His  father,  who 
wished  to  instruct  himself  as  well  as  to  help  his  son,  helped 
him  with  his  home  preparation.  During  holidays,  the  boy 
enjoyed  his  liberty.  Some  of  his  schoolfellows — Vercel,  Char- 
riere ,  Guillemin ,  Coulon — called  for  him  to  come  out  with  them 
and  he  followed  them  with  pleasure.  He  delighted  in  fishing 
parties  on  the  Cuisance,  and  much  admired  the  net  throwing 
of  his  comrade  Jules  Vercel.  But  he  avoided  bird  trapping ; 
the  sight  of  a  wounded  lark  was  painful  to  him. 

The  doors  of  Louis  Pasteur's  home  were  not  usually  open 
except  to  his  schoolboy  friends,  who,  when  they  did  not  fetch 
him  away,  used  to  come  and  play  in  the  tannery  yard  with 
remnants  of  bark,  stray  bits  of  iron,  etc.  Joseph  Pasteur, 
though  not  considered  a  proud  man,  did  not  easily  make 
friends.  His  language  and  manners  were  not  those  of  a 
retired  sergeant ;  he  never  spoke  of  his  campaigns  and  never 
entered  a  cafe.  On  Sundays,  wearing  a  military-looking  frock 
coat,  spotlessly  clean  and  adorned  with  the  showy  ribbon  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  (worn  very  large  at  that  time) ,  he  invariably 
walked  out  towards  the  road  from  Arbois  to  Besangon.  This 
road  passes  between  vine-planted  hills.  On  the  left,  on  a 
wooded  height  above  the  wide  plain  towards  Dole,  the  ruins  of 
the  Vadans  tower  invest  the  whole  landscape  with  a  lingering 
glamour  of  heroic  times.  In  these  solitary  meditations,  he 
dwelt  more  anxiously  on  the  future  than  on  present  difficulties, 
the  latter  being  of  little  account  in  this  hard-working  family. 
What  would  become  of  this  son  of  his,  conscientious  and 
studious,  but,  though  already  thirteen  years  old,  with  no 
apparent  preference  for  anything  but  drawing?  The  epithet 
of  artist  given  to  Louis  Pasteur  by  his  Arboisian  friends  only 
half  pleased  the  paternal  vanity.  And  yet  it  is  impossible  not 
to  be  struck  by  the  realism  of  his  first  original  effort,  a  very 
bold  pastel  drawing.  This  pastel  represents  Louis'  mother, 
one  morning  that  she  was  going  to  market,  with  a  white  cap 
and  a  blue  and  green  tartan  shawl.    Her  son  insisted  on  painting 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

her  just  as  she  was.  The  portrait  is  full  of  sincerity  and  not 
unlike  the  work  of  a  conscientious  pre-Eaphaelite.  The  power- 
ful face  is  illumined  by  a  pair  of  clear  straightforward  eyes. 

Though  they  did  not  entertain  mere  acquaintances,  the 
husband  and  wife  were  happy  to  receive  those  who  seemed  to 
them  worthy  of  affection  or  esteem  by  reason  of  some  superiority 
of  the  mind  or  of  the  heart.  In  this  way  they  formed  a  friend- 
ship with  an  old  army  doctor  then  practising  in  the  Arbois 
hospital,  Dr.  Dumont,  a  man  who  studied  for  the  sake  of 
learning  and  who  did  a  great  deal  of  good  while  avoiding 
popularity. 

Another  familiar  friend  was  a  philosopher  named  Bousson 
de  Mairet.  An  indefatigable  reader,  he  never  went  out  with- 
out a  book  or  pamphlet  in  his  pocket.  He  spent  his  life  in 
compiling  from  isolated  facts  annals  in  which  the  character- 
istics of  the  Francs-Comtois,  and  especially  the  Arboisians, 
were  reproduced  in  detail,  w4th  labour  worthy  of  a  Benedictine 
monk.  He  often  came  to  spend  a  quiet  evening  with  the 
Pasteur  family,  who  used  to  question  him  and  to  listen  to  his 
interesting  records  of  that  strange  Arboisian  race,  difficult  to 
understand,  presenting  as  it  does  a  mixture  of  heroic  courage 
and  that  slightly  ironical  good  humour  which  Parisians  and 
Southerners  mistake  for  naiveness.  Arboisians  never  distrust 
themselves,  but  are  sceptical  where  others  are  concerned.  They 
are  proud  of  their  local  history,  and  even  of  their  rodomontades. 

For  instance,  on  August  4,  1830,  they  sent  an  address  to 
the  Parisians  to  express  theh  indignation  against  the  "  Ordon- 
nances  "  '  and  to  assure  them  that  all  the  available  population 
of  Arbois  w^as  ready  to  fly  to  the  assistance  of  Paris.  In  April, 
1834,  a  lawyer's  clerk,  passing  one  evening  through  Arbois  by 
the  coach,  announced  to  a  few  gardes  nationaux  who  were  stand- 
ing about  that  the  Republic  was  proclaimed  at  Lyons.  Arbois 
immediately  rose  in  arms ;  the  insurgents  armed  themselves 
with  guns  from  the  Hotel  de  Ville.     Louis  Pasteur  watched  the 

'  Ordonnances  du  26  J uillet,  1830.  A  royal  Decree  issued  by  Charles  X 
under  the  advice  of  his  minister,  Prince  de  Polignac;  it  was  based  on  a 
misreading  of  one  of  the  articles  of  the  Charter  of  1814,  and  dissolved 
the  new  Chamber  of  Deputies  before  it  had  even  assembled ;  it  sup- 
pressed the  freedom  of  the  Press  and  created  a  new  electoral  system 
to  the  advantage  of  the  royalist  party.  These  ordonnances  were  the 
cause  of  the  1830  Revolution,  which  placed  Louis  Philippe  of  Orleans  on 
the  Throne.     [Trans.] 


1822—1843  9 

arrival  from  Besangon  of  200  grenadiers,  four  squadrons  of 
light  cavalry,  and  a  small  battery  of  artillery  sent  to  reduce  the 
rebels.  The  sous-prefet  of  Poligny  having  asked  the  rioters 
v7ho  v^ere  their  leaders,  they  answered  with  one  voice,  "  We 
are  all  leaders."  A  few  days  later  the  great,  the  good  news 
was  published  in  all  the  newspapers  :  "  Arbois,  Lyons,  and 
Paris  are  pacified."  The  Arboisians  called  their  neighbours 
"  the  Braggarts  of  Salins,"  probably  with  the  ingenious  inten- 
tion of  turning  such  a  well-deserved  accusation  from  them- 
selves. 

Louis  Pasteur,  whose  mind  already  had  a  serious  bent, 
preferred  to  these  recent  anecdotes  such  historical  records  as 
that  of  the  siege  of  Arbois  under  Henry  IV,  when  the  Arbois- 
ians held  out  for  three  whole  days  against  a  besieging  army  of 
25,000  men.  His  childish  imagination,  after  being  worked 
upon  by  these  stories  of  local  patriotism,  eagerly  seized  upon 
ideals  of  a  higher  patriotism,  and  fed  upon  the  glory  of  the 
French  people  as  represented  by  the  conquests  of  the  Empire. 

He  watched  his  parents ,  day  by  day  working  under  dire  neces- 
sity and  ennobling  their  weary  task  by  considering  their 
children's  education  almost  as  essential  as  their  daily  bread ; 
and,  as  in  all  things  the  father  and  mother  took  an  interest  in 
noble  motives  and  principles,  their  material  life  was  lightened 
and  illumined  by  their  moral  life. 

One  more  friend,  the  headmaster  of  Arbois  college,  M. 
Eomanet,  exerted  a  decisive  influence  on  Louis  Pasteur's 
career.  This  master,  who  was  constantly  trying  to  elevate 
the  mind  and  heart  of  his  pupils,  inspired  Louis  with  great 
admiration  as  well  as  with  respect  and  gratitude.  Eomanet 
considered  that  whilst  instruction  doubled  a  man's  value,  educa- 
tion, in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  increased  it  tenfold. 
He  was  the  first  to  discover  in  Louis  Pasteur  the  hidden  spark 
that  had  not  yet  revealed  itself  by  any  brilliant  success  in  the 
hardworking  schoolboy.  Louis'  mind  worked  so  carefully  that 
he  was  considered  slow ;  he  never  affirmed  anything  of  which 
he  was  not  absolutely  sure ;  but  with  all  his  strength  and 
caution  he  also  had  vivid  imaginative  faculties. 

Eomanet,  during  their  strolls  round  the  college  playground, 
took  pleasure  in  awakening  with  an  educator's  interest  the 
leading  qualities  of  this  young  nature — circumspection  and 
enthusiasm.     The  boy,  who  had  been  sitting  over  his  desk 


10  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

with  all-absorbing  attention,  now  listened  with  sparkling  eyes 
to  the  kind  teacher  talking  to  him  of  his  future  and  opening  to 
him  the  prospect  of  the  great  Ecole  Normale} 

An  ofQcer  of  the  Paris  municipal  guard,  Captain  Barbier, 
who  always  came  to  Arbois  when  on  leave,  offered  to  look  after 
Louis  Pasteur  if  he  were  sent  to  Paris.  But  Joseph  Pasteur 
— in  spite  of  all — hesitated  to  send  his  son,  not  yet  sixteen 
years  old,  a  hundred  leagues  away  from  home.  Would  it  not 
be  wiser  to  let  him  go  to  Besancon  college  and  come  back  to 
Arbois  college  as  professor?  What  could  be  more  desirable 
than  such  a  position?  Surely  Paris  and  the  Ecole  Normale 
were  qu^te  unnecessary  !  The  question  of  money  also  had  to 
be  considered. 

"  That  need  not  trouble  you,"  said  Captain  Barbier.  "  In 
the  Latin  Quarter,  Impasse  des  Feuillantines,  there  is  a  pre- 
paratory school,  of  which  the  headmaster,  M.  Barbet,  is  a 
Franc-Comtois.  He  will  do  for  your  son  what  he  has  done  for 
many  boys  from  his  own  country — that  is,  take  him  at  reduced 
school  fees." 

Joseph  Pasteur  at  last  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded,  and 
Louis'  departure  was  fixed  for  the  end  of  October,  1838.  He 
was  not  going  alone  :  Jules  Vercel,  his  dear  school  friend,  was 
also  going  to  Paris  to  work  for  his  "  baccalaureat."  ^  This 
youth  had  a  most  happy  temperament  :  unambitious,  satisfied 
with  each  day's  work  as  it  came,  he  took  pride  and  pleasure 
in  the  success  of  others,  and  especially  in  that  of  "  Louis,"  as 
he  then  and  always  fraternally  called  his  friend.     The  two 

*  Ecole  Normale  Superieure,  under  the  supervision  of  the  Ministry  of 
Public  Instruction  and  Fine  Arts,  founded  in  1808  by  Napoleon  I,  with 
the  object  of  training  young  professors.  Candidates  must  (1)  be  older 
than  eighteen  and  younger  than  twenty-one;  (2)  pass  one  written  and 
one  viva  voce  examination ;  (3)  be  already  in  possession  of  their  diploma 
as  bachelier  of  science  or  of  letters,  according  to  the  branch  of  studies 
which  they  wish  to  take  up ;  and  (4)  sign  an  engagement  for  ten  years' 
work  in  public  instruction.  The  professors  of  the  Ecole  Normale  take 
the  title  of  Maitre  des  Conferences.     [Trans.] 

2  Baccalaureat  (low  Latin  bachalarlatus),  first  degree  taken  in  a 
French  Faculty;  the  next  is  licence,  and  the  next  doctorate.  It  is 
much  more  elementary  than  a  bachelor's  degree  in  an  English  university. 
There  are  two  baccalaureats  :  (1)  the  baccalaureat  es  lettres  required  of 
candidates  for  the  Faculties  of  Medicine  and  of  Law,  to  the  Ecole 
Normale  Superieure  and  to  several  public  offices ;  (2)  the  baccalaureat  es 
sciences,  required  for  admission  to  the  Schools  of  Medicine  and  of  Phar- 
macy, to  the  Ecole  Normale  Superieure  (scientific  section),  and  the 
Polytechnic,  Military  and  Foresters'  Schools.     [Trans.] 


1822—1843  11 

boys'  friendship  went  some  way  to  alleviate  the  natural 
anxieties  felt  by  both  families.  The  slowness  and  difficulty  of 
travelling  in  those  days  gave  to  farewells  a  sort  of  solemn  sad- 
ness ;  they  were  repeated  twenty  times  whilst  the  horses  were 
being  harnessed  and  the  luggage  hoisted  on  to  the  coach  in  the 
large  courtyard  of  the  "Hotel  de  la  Poste."  On  that  bleak 
October  morning,  amidst  a  shower  of  rain  and  sleet,  the  two 
lads  had  to  sit  under  the  tarpaulin  behind  the  driver ;  there 
were  no  seats  left  inside  or  under  the  hood.  In  spite  of 
Vercel's  habit  of  seeing  the  right  side  of  things  and  his  joy  in 
thinking  that  in  forty-eight  hours  he,  the  country  boy,  would 
see  the  wonders  of  Paris — in  spite  of  Pasteur's  brave  resolve 
to  make  the  most  of  his  unexpected  opportunities  of  study, 
of  the  now  possible  entrance  into  the  "  Ecole  Normale  " — 
both  looked  with  heavy  hearts  at  the  familiar  scene  they  were 
leaving  behind  them — their  homes,  the  square  tower  of  Arbois 
church,  the  heights  of  the  Ermitage  in  the  grey  distance. 

Every  native  of  Jura,  though  he  affects  to  feel  nothing  of  the 
kind,  has,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  a  strong  feeling  of  attach- 
ment for  the  corner  of  the  world  where  he  has  spent  his  child- 
hood ;  as  soon  as  he  forsakes  his  native  soil  his  thoughts  return 
to  it  with  a  painful  and  persistent  charm.  The  two  boys  did 
not  take  much  interest  in  the  towns  where  the  coach  stopped 
to  change  horses.  Dole,  Dijon,  Auxerre,  Joigny,  Sens,  Fon- 
tainebleau,  etc. 

When  Louis  Pasteur  reached  Paris  he  did  not  feel  like 
Balzac's  student  hero,  confidently  defying  the  great  city.  In 
spite  of  the  strong  will  already  visible  in  his  pensive  features, 
his  grief  was  too  deep  to  be  reasoned  away.  No  one  at  first 
suspected  this ;  he  was  a  reserved  youth ,  with  none  of  the 
desire  to  talk  which  leads  weak  natures  to  ease  their  sorrows 
by  pouring  them  out;  but,  when  all  was  quiet  in  the  Impasse 
des  Feuillantines  and  his  sleeping  comrades  could  not  break 
in  upon  his  regrets,  he  would  lie  awake  for  hours  thinking  of 
his  home  and  repeating  the  mournful  line — 

How  endless  unto  watchful  anguish 
Night  doth  seem. 

The  students  of  the  Barbet  school  attended  the  classes  of 
the  Lycee  St.  Louis.  In  spite  of  his  willingness  and  his  pas- 
sionate love  of  study,  Louis  was  overcome  with  despair  at  being 
away  from  home.     Never  was  homesickness  more  acute.     "  If 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

I  could  only  get  a  whiff  of  the  tannery  yard,"  he  would  say  to 
Jules  Vercel,  "  I  feel  I  should  be  cured."  M.  Barbet  en- 
deavoured in  vain  to  amuse  and  turn  the  thoughts  of  this  lad 
of  fifteen  so  absorbed  in  his  sorrow.  At  last  he  thought  it  his 
duty  to  warn  the  parents  of  this  state  of  mind ,  which  threatened 
to  become  morbid. 

One  morning  in  November  Louis  Pasteur  was  told  with  an 
air  of  mystery  that  he  was  wanted.  "  They  are  waiting  for  you 
close  by,"  said  the  messenger,  indicating  a  small  cafe  at  the 
corner  of  the  street.  Louis  entered  and  found  a  man  sitting  at 
a  small  table  at  the  back  of  the  shop,  his  face  in  his  hands.  It 
was  his  father.  "  I  have  come  to  fetch  you,"  he  said  simply. 
No  explanations  were  necessary ;  the  father  and  son  understood 
each  other's  longings. 

What  took  place  in  Pasteur's  mind  when  he  found  himself 
again  at  Arbois?  After  the  first  few  days  of  relief  and  joy,  did 
he  feel,  when  he  went  back  to  Arbois  college,  any  regret,  not 
to  say  remorse,  at  not  having  overcome  his  homesickness? 
Was  he  discouraged  by  the  prospect  of  a  restricted  career  in 
that  small  town  ?  Little  is  known  of  that  period  when  his  will 
had  been  mastered  by  his  feelings ;  but  from  the  indecision  of 
his  daily  life  we  may  hazard  a  guess  at  the  disquieted  state  of 
his  mind  at  this  time.  At  the  beginning  of  that  year  (1839) 
he  returned  for  a  time  to  his  early  tastes ;  he  went  back  to  his 
coloured  chalks,  left  aside  for  the  last  eighteen  months,  ever 
since  one  holiday  time  when  he  had  drawn  Captain  Barbier, 
proudly  wearing  his  uniform,  and  with  the  high  colour  of  ex- 
cellent health. 

He  soon  got  beyond  the  powers  of  his  drawing  master,  M. 
Pointurier,  a  good  man  who  does  not  seem  to  have  seen  any 
scientific  possibilities  in  the  art  of  drawing. 

Louis'  pastel  drawings  soon  formed  a  portrait  gallery  of 
friends.  An  old  cooper  of  seventy.  Father  Gaidot,  born  at 
Dole,  but  now  living  at  Arbois,  had  his  turn.  Gaidot  appears 
in  a  festive  costume,  a  blue  coat  and  a  yellow  waistcoat,  very 
picturesque  with  his  wrinkled  forehead  and  close-shaven  cheeks. 
Then  there  are  all  the  members  of  a  family  named  Koch.  The 
father  and  the  son  are  drawn  carefully,  portraits  such  as  are 
often  seen  in  country  villages ;  but  the  two  daughters  Lydia 
and  Sophia  are  more  delicately  pencilled  ;  they  live  again  in  the 
youthful  grace  of  their  twenty  summers.  Then  we  have  a 
notary,  the  wide  collar  of  a  frock  coat  framing  his  rubicund 


1822—1843  13 

face ;  a  young  woman  in  white ;  an  old  nun  of  eighty-two  in  a 
fluted  cap ,  wearing  a  white  hood  and  an  ivory  cross ;  a  httle 
boy  of  ten  in  a  velvet  suit,  a  melancholy-looking  child,  not 
destined  to  grow  to  manhood.  Pasteur  obligingly  drew  any 
one  who  wished  to  have  a  portrait.  Among  all  these  pastels, 
two  are  really  remarkable.  The  first  represents,  in  his  official 
garb,  a  M.  Blondeau,  registrar  of  mortgages,  whose  gentle  and 
refined  features  are  perfectly  dehneated.  The  other  is  the  por- 
trait of  a  mayor  of  Arbois,  M.  Pareau ;  he  wears  his  silver- 
embroidered  uniform,  with  a  white  stock.  The  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  and  the  tricolour  scarf  are  discreetly  indi- 
cated. The  whole  interest  is  centred  in  the  smiling  face,  with 
hair  brushed  up  a  la  Louis  Philippe ,  and  blue  eyes  harmonizing 
with  a  blue  ground. 

The  compliments  of  this  local  dignitary  and  Eomanet's 
renewed  counsels  at  the  end  of  the  year — when  Pasteur  took 
more  school  prizes  than  he  could  carry — reawakened  within 
him  the  ambition  for  the  Ecole  Normale. 

There  was  no  "  philosophy  "  '  class  in  the  college  of  Arbois, 
and  a  return  to  Paris  seemed  formidable.  Pasteur  resolved 
to  go  to  the  college  at  Besangon,  where  he  could  go  on  with 
his  studies,  pass  his  baccalaureat  and  then  prepare  for  the 
examinations  of  the  Ecole  Normale.  Besangon  is  only  forty 
kilometres  from  Arbois,  and  Joseph  Pasteur  was  in  the  habit 
of  going  there  several  times  a  year  to  sell  some  of  his  prepared 
skins.     This  was  by  far  the  wisest  solution  of  the  problem. 

On  his  arrival  at  the  Eoyal  College  of  Franche  Comte 
Pasteur  found  himself  under  a  philosophy  master,  M.  Daunas, 

^  Philosophie  class.  In  French,  secondary  schools  or  lycees  the  forms 
or  classes,  in  Pasteur's  time,  were  arranged  as  follows,  starting  from  the 
bottom — 

1°  huitieme. 

2°  septieme. 

6°  sixieme  (French  grammar  was  begun). 

5°  cinquieme  (Latin  was  begun). 

6°  quatrieme  (Greek  was  begun). 

7°  troisieme. 

8°  seconde. 


9°  Mathematiques  elementaires.      Rhetorique. 

10°  Mathematiques  speciales.  Philosophie. 

The   seconde   students   who   intended   to    pass   their    baccalaureat    es 

sciences  wont  into  the  mathematiques  elementaires  class,  whilst  those 

who  were  destined  for  letters  or  the  law  entered  the  rhetorique  class, 

from  which  they  went  on  to  the  philosophie  class.     [Trans.] 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

who  had  been  a  student  at  the  Ecole  Normale  and  was  a 
graduate  of  the  University;  he  was  young,  full  of  eloquence, 
proud  of  his  pupils,  of  awakening  their  faculties  and  directing 
their  minds.  The  science  master,  M.  Darlay,  did  not  inspire 
the  same  enthusiasm ;  he  was  an  elderly  man  and  regretted 
the  good  old  times  when  pupils  were  less  inquisitive. 
Pasteur's  questions  often  embarrassed  him.  Louis'  reputation 
as  a  painter  satisfied  him  no  longer,  though  the  portrait  he 
drew  of  one  of  his  comrades  was  exhibited.  "  All  this  does 
not  lead  to  the  Ecole  Normale,"  he  wrote  to  his  parents  in 
January,  18^0.  "I  prefer  a  first  place  at  college  to  10,000 
praises  in  the  course  of  conversation.  .  .  .  We  shall  meet  on 
Sunday,  dear  father,  for  I  beheve  there  is  a  fair  on  Monday. 
If  we  see  M.  Daunas,  we  will  speak  to  him  of  the  Ecole 
Normale.  Dear  sisters,  let  me  tell  you  again,  work  hard,  love 
each  other.  When  one  is  accustomed  to  work  it  is  impossible 
to  do  without  it :  besides,  everything  in  this  world  depends  on 
that.  Armed  with  science,  one  can  rise  above  all  one's 
fellows.  .  .  .  But  I  hope  all  this  good  advice  to  you  is  super- 
fluous, and  I  am  sure  you  spend  many  moments  every  day 
learning  your  grammar.  Love  each  other  as  I  love  you,  while 
awaiting  the  happy  day  when  I  shall  be  received  at  the  Ecole 
Normale."  Thus  was  his  whole  life  filled  with  tenderness  as 
well  as  with  work.  He  took  the  degree  of  "  bachelier  es 
lettres  "  on  August  29,  1840.  The  three  examiners,  doctors 
"  es  lettres,"  put  down  his  answers  as  "good  in  Greek  on 
Plutarch  and  in  Latin  on  Virgil,  good  also  in  rhetoric, 
medicine,  history  and  geography,  good  in  philosophy,  very 
good  in  elementary  science,  good  in  French  composition." 

At  the  end  of  the  summer  holidays  the  headmaster  of  the 
Eoyal  College  of  Besan^on,  M.  Eepecaud,  sent  for  him  and 
offered  him  the  post  of  preparation  master.  Certain  adminis- 
trative changes  and  an  increased  number  of  pupils  were  the 
reason  of  this  offer,  which  proved  the  master's  esteem  for 
Pasteur's  moral  qualities,  his  first  degree  not  having  been 
obtained  with  any  particular  brilliancy. 

The  youthful  master  was  to  be  remunerated  from  the  month 
of  January,  1841.  A  student  in  the  class  of  special  mathema- 
tics, he  was  his  comrades'  mentor  during  preparation  time. 
They  obeyed  him  without  difficulty ;  simple  and  yet  serious- 
minded,  his  sense  of  individual  dignity  made  authority  easy 
to  him.     Ever  thoughtful  of  his  distant  home,  he  strengthened 


1822—1843  15 

the  influence  of  the  father  and  mother  in  the  education  of  his 
sisters,  who  had  not  so  great  a  love  of  industry  as  he  had. 
On  November  1,  1840— he  was  not  eighteen  yet — pleased  to 
hear  that  they  were  making  some  progress,  he  wrote  the  follow- 
ing, which,  though  slightly  pedantic,  reveals  the  warmth  of 
his  feelings—"  My  dear  parents,  my  sisters,  when  I  received 
at  the  same  time  the  two  letters  that  you  sent  me  I  thought 
that  something  extraordinary  had  happened,  but  such  was  not 
the  case.  The  second  letter  you  wrote  me  gave  me  much 
pleasure ;  it  tells  me  that— perhaps  for  the  first  time— my 
sisters  have  willed.  To  loill  is  a  great  thing,  dear  sisters, 
for  Action  and  Work  usually  follow  Will,  and  almost  always 
Work  is  accompanied  by  success.  These  three  things,  Will, 
Work,  Success,  fill  human  existence.  Will  opens  the  door  to 
success  both  brilliant  and  happy ;  Work  passes  these  doors , 
and  at  the  end  of  the  journey  Success  comes  to  crown  one's 
efforts.  And  so,  my  dear  sisters,  if  your  resolution  is  firm, 
your  task,  be  it  what  it  may,  is  already  begun ;  you  have  but  to 
walk  forward,  it  will  achieve  itself.  If  perchance  you  should 
falter  during  the  journey,  a  hand  would  be  there  to  support 
you.  If  that  should  be  wanting,  God,  who  alone  could  take 
that  hand  from  you,  would  Himself  accomplish  its  work.  .  .  . 
May  my  words  be  felt  and  understood  by  you,  dearest  sisters. 
I  impress  them  on  your  hearts.  May  they  be  your  guide. 
Farewell.     Your  brother." 

The  letters  he  wrote,  the  books  he  loved,  the  friends  he 
chose,  bear  witness  to  the  character  of  Pasteur  in  those  days 
of  early  youth.  As  he  now  felt,  after  the  discouraging  trial 
he  had  gone  through  in  Paris,  that  the  development  of  the  will 
should  hold  the  first  place  in  education,  he  applied  all  his  efforts 
to  the  bringing  out  of  this  leading  force.  He  was  already 
grave  and  exceptionally  matured ;  he  saw  in  the  perfecting  of 
self  the  great  law  of  man,  and  nothing  that  could  assist  in 
that  improvement  seemed  to  him  without  importance.  Books 
read  in  early  life  appeared  to  him  to  have  an  almost  decisive 
influence.  In  his  eyes  a  good  book  was  a  good  action  con- 
stantly renewed,  a  bad  one  an  incessant  and  irreparable  fault. 

There  lived  at  that  time  in  Franche  Comte  an  elderly  writer, 
whom  Sainte  Beuve  considered  as  the  ideal  of  the  upright  man 
and  of  the  man  of  letters.  His  name  was  Joseph  Droz,  and 
his  moral  doctrine  was  that  vanity  is  the  cause  of  many 
wrecked    and   aimless    lives,   that   moderation   is    a   form    of 


16  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

wisdom  and  an  element  of  happiness,  and  that  most  men 
sadden  and  trouble  their  lives  by  causeless  worry  and  agitation. 
His  own  life  was  an  example  of  his  precepts  of  kindliness  and 
patience,  and  was  filled  to  the  utmost  with  all  the  good  that  a 
pure  literary  conscience  can  bestow  ;  he  was  all  benevolence 
and  cordiality.  It  seemed  natural  that  he  should  publish  one 
after  another  numberless  editions  of  his  Essay  on  the  Art  of 
being  Happy. 

"I  have  still,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  parents,  "that  little 
volume  of  M.  Droz  which  he  was  kind  enough  to  lend  me. 
I  have  never  read  anything  wiser,  more  moral  or  more  virtuous. 
I  have  also  another  of  his  works ;  nothing  was  ever  better 
written.  At  the  end  of  the  year  I  shall  bring  you  back  these 
books.  One  feels  in  reading  them  an  irresistible  charm  which 
penetrates  the  soul  and  fills  it  with  the  most  exalted  and 
generous  feelings.  There  is  not  a  word  of  exaggeration  in 
what  I  am  writing.  Indeed  I  take  his  books  with  me  to  the 
services  on  Sundays  to  read  them,  and  I  believe  that  in  so 
acting,  in  spite  of  all  that  thoughtless  bigotry  might  say,  I  am 
conforming  to  the  very  highest  religious  ideas." 

Those  ideas  Droz  might  have  summarized  simply  by 
Christ's  words,  "Love  ye  one  another."  But  this  was  a 
time  of  circumlocution.  Young  people  demanded  of  books, 
of  discourses,  of  poetry,  a  sonorous  echo  of  their  own  secret 
feelings.  In  the  writings  of  the  Besangon  moralist,  Pasteur 
saw  a  religion  such  as  he  himself  dreamed  of,  a  religion  free 
from  all  controversy  and  all  intolerance,  a  religion  of  peace, 
love  and  devotion. 

A  little  later,  Silvio  Pellico's  Miei  Prigioni  developed  in  him 
an  emotion  which  answered  to  his  instinctive  sympathy  for 
the  sorrows  of  others.  He  wrote  advising  his  sisters  to  read 
"  that  interesting  work,  where  you  breathe  with  every  page  a 
religious  perfume  which  exalts  and  ennobles  the  soul."  In 
read  Miei  Prigioni  his  sisters  would  light  upon  a  passage  on 
fraternal  love  and  all  the  deep  feelings  which  it  represents. 

"For  my  sisters,"  he  wrote  in  another  letter,  "  I  bought, 
a  few  days  ago ,  a  very  pretty  book ;  I  mean  by  very  pretty 
something  very  interesting.  It  is  a  little  volume  which  took 
the  Montyon  ^  prize  a  few  years  ago,  and  it  is  called,  Picciola. 

1  Prix  Montyon  :  a  series  of  prizes  founded  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  by  Baron  de  Montyon,  a  distinguished  philanthropist, 
and  conferred  on  literary  works  for  their  moral  worth,  and  on  individuals 


1822—1843  17 

How  could  it  have  deserved  the  Montyon  prize,"  he  added, 
with  an  edifying  respect  for  the  decisions  of  the  Academy, 
' '  if  the  reading  of  it  were  not  of  great  value  ?  ' ' 

"You  know,"  he  announced  to  his  parents  when  his 
appointment  was  definitely  settled,  "that  a  supplementary 
master  has  board  and  lodging  and  300  francs  a  year!  "  This 
sum  appeared  to  him  enormous.  He  added,  on  January  20  : 
' '  At  {he  end  of  this  month  money  will  already  be  owing  to 
me ;  and  yet  I  assure  you  I  am  not  really  worth  it." 

Pleased  with  this  situation,  though  such  a  modest  one,  full 
of  eagerness  to  work,  he  wrote  in  the  same  letter  :  "  I  find  it 
an  excellent  thing  to  have  a  room  of  my  own ;  I  have  more 
time  to  myself,  and  I  am  not  interrupted  by  those  endless 
little  things  that  the  boys  have  to  do,  and  which  take  up  a 
good  deal  of  time.  Indeed  I  am  already  noticing  a  change 
in  my  work ;  dif&culties  are  getting  smoothed  away  because  I 
have  more  time  to  give  to  overcoming  them ;  in  fact  I  am 
beginning  to  hope  that  by  working  as  I  do  and  shall  continue 
to  do  I  may  be  received  with  a  good  rank  at  the  Ecole.  But 
do  not  think  that  I  am  overworking  myself  at  all ;  I  take  every 
recreation  necessary  to  my  health." 

Besides  his  ordinary  work,  he  had  been  entrusted  with 
the  duty  of  giving  some  help  in  mathematics  and  physical 
science  to  the  youths  who  were  reading  for  their  baccalaureat. 

As  if  reproaching  himself  with  being  the  only  member  of 
the  family  who  enjoyed  the  opportunity  of  learning,  he  offered 
to  pay  for  the  schooling  of  his  youngest  sister  Josephine  in  a 
girls'  college  at  Lons-le-Saulnier.  He  wrote,  "  I  could  easily 
do  it  by  giving  private  lessons.  I  have  already  refused  to 
give  some  to  several  boys  at  20  or  25  fr.  a  month.  I  refused 
because  I  have  not  too  much  time  to  give  to  my  work."  But 
he  was  quite  disposed  to  waive  this  motive  in  deference  to 
superior  judgment.  His  parents  promised  to  think  over  this 
fraternal  wish,  without  however  accepting  his  generous  sugges- 
tion, offering  even  to  supplement  his  small  salary  of  24  francs 
a  month  by  a  little  allowance,  in  case  he  wished  for  a  few 
private  lessons  to  prepare  himself  more  thoroughly  for  the 
Ecole  Normale.     They  quite  recognized  his  right  to  advise; 

for  acts  of  private  virtue  or  self-sacrifice.  The  laureates  are  chosen 
every  year  by  the  Academic  Fran9ais6,  and  in  this  way  many  obscure 
heroes  are  deservedly  rewarded,  and  many  excellent  books  brought  to 
public  notice.     [Trans.] 

0 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

and — as  he  thought  that  his  sister  should  prepare  herself 
beforehand  for  the  class  she  was  to  enter — he  wrote  to  his 
mother  with  filial  authority,  "Josephine  should  work  a  good 
deal  until  the  end  of  the  year,  and  I  would  recommend  to 
Mother  that  she  should  not  continually  be  sent  out  on  errands ; 
she  must  have  time  to  work." 

Michelet,  in  his  recollections,  tells  of  his  hours  of  intimacy 
with  a  college  friend  named  Poinsat,  and  thus  expresses  him- 
self :    "It  was  an  immense,   an  insatiable  longing   for  con- 
fidences, for  mutual  revelations."     Pasteur  felt  something  of 
the    sort    for    Charles    Chappuis,    a    philosophic    student    at 
Besangon  college.     He  was  the  son  of  a  notary  at  St.  Vit,  one 
of  those  old-fashioned  provincial  notaries,  who,  by  the  dignity 
of  their  lives,  their  spirit  of  wisdom,  the  perpetual  preoccupa- 
tion of  their  duty,  inspired  their  children   with   a   sense   of 
responsibility.     His  son  had  even  surpassed  his  father's  hopes. 
Of  this  generous,  gentle-faced  youth  there  exists  a  lithograph 
signed  "Louis  Pasteur."     A  book  entitled  Les  Graveurs  du 
XIX*"^   Siecle    mentions  this  jjortrait,  giving  Pasteur  an  un- 
expected form  of  celebrity.     Before  the  Graveurs,  the  Guide 
de  V Amateur  des    QiJuvres    d' Art   had    already  spoken    of    a 
pastel  drawing  discovered  in  the  United  States  near  Boston. 
It  represents  another  schoolfellow  of  Pasteur's,  who,  far  from 
his  native  land,  carefully  preserved  the  portrait  of  Chappuis 
as  well  as  his  own.     Everything  that  friendship  can  give  in 
strength  and  disinterestedness,  everything  that,  according  to 
Montaigne — who  knew  more  about  it  even  that   Michelet — 
"  makes  souls  merge  into  each  other  so  that  the  seam  which 
originally  joined  them  disappears,"  was  experienced  by  Pasteur 
and    Chappuis,     Filial    piety,    brotherly    solicitude,    friendly 
confidences — Pasteur  knew  the  sweetness  of  all  these  early 
human  joys  ;  the  whole  of  his  life  was  permeated  with  them. 
The  books  he  loved  added  to  this  flow  of  generous  emotions. 
Chappuis  watched  and  admired  this  original  nature,  which, 
with  a  rigid  mind  made   for   scientific   research  and   always 
seeking    the    proof    of    everything,    yet    read    Lamartine's 
Meditations  with  enthusiasm.     Differing  in  this  from  many 
science  students,  who  are  indifferent  to  literature — just  as  some 
literature  students  affect  to  disdain  science — Pasteur  kept  for 
literature  a  place  apart.     He  looked  upon  it  as  a  guide  for 
general  ideas.     Sometimes  he  would   praise  to   excess   some 
writer  or  orator  merely  because  he  had  found  in  one  page  or 


1822—1843  19 

in  one  sentence  the  expression  of  an  exalted  sentiment.  It 
was  with  Chappuis  that  he  exchanged  his  thoughts,  and 
together  they  mapped  out  a  life  in  common.  When  Chappuis 
went  to  Paris,  the  better  to  prepare  himself  for  the  Ecole 
Normale,  Pasteur  felt  an  ardent  desire  to  go  with  him. 
Chappuis  wrote  to  him  with  that  open  spontaneity  which  is 
such  a  charm  in  youth,  "  I  shall  feel  as  if  I  had  all  my  Franche 
Comte  with  me  when  you  are  here."  Pasteur's  father  feared 
a  crisis  like  that  of  1838,  and,  after  hesitating,  refused  his 
consent  to  an  immediate  departure.     "Next  year,"  he  said. 

In  October,  1841,  though  still  combining  the  functions  of 
master  and  student,  Pasteur  resumed  his  attendance  of  the 
classes  for  special  mathematics.  But  he  was  constantly  think- 
ing of  Paris,  "Paris,  where  study  is  deeper."  One  of 
Chappuis'  comrades,  Bertin,  whom  Pasteur  had  met  during 
the  holidays,  had  just  entered  the  Ecole  Normale  at  the  head 
of  the  list  after  attending  in  Paris  a  class  of  special 
mathematics. 

"If  I  do  not  pass  this  year,"  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  father 
on  November  7 ,  "  I  think  I  should  do  well  to  go  to  Paris  for 
a  year.  But  there  is  time  to  think  of  that  and  of  the  means 
of  doing  so  without  spending  too  much,  if  the  occasion  should 
arise.  I  see  now  what  great  advantage  there  is  in  giving  two 
years  to  mathematics ;  everything  becomes  clearer  and  easier. 
Of  all  oar  class  students  who  tried  this  year  for  the  Ecole 
Poly  technique  and  the  Ecole  Normale,  not  a  single  one  has 
passed,  not  even  the  best  of  them,  a  student  who  had  already 
done  one  year's  mathematics  at  Lyons.  The  master  we  have 
now  is  very  good.     I  feel  sure  I  shall  do  a  great  deal  this  year." 

He  was  twice  second  in  his  class ;  once  he  was  first  in 
physics,  "That  gives  me  hope  for  later  on,"  he  said.  He 
wrote  about  another  mathematical  competition,  "  If  I  get  a 
good  place  it  will  be  well  deserved,  for  this  work  has  given  me 
a  pretty  bad  headache ;  I  always  do  get  one,  though,  whenever 
we  have  a  competition."  Then,  fearful  of  alarming  his 
parents,  he  hastily  adds,  "  But  those  headaches  never  last  long, 
and  it  is  only  an  hour  and  a  half  since  we  left  off." 

Anxious  to  stifle  by  hard  work  his  growing  regrets  at  not 
having  followed  Chappuis  to  Paris,  Pasteur  imagined  that  he 
might  prepare  himself  for  the  Ecole  Poly  technique  as  well  as 
for  the  Ecole  Normale.  One  of  his  masters.  M.  Bouche,  had 
led  him  to  hope  that  be  might  be  successful.     "  I  shall  try  this 

c  2 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

year  for  both  schools,"  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  friend  (January 
22,  1842).  "  I  do  not  know  whether  I  am  right  in  deciding  to 
do  so.  One  thing  tells  me  that  I  am  wrong  :  it  is  the  idea 
that  we  might  thus  be  parted;  and  when  I  think  of  that,  I 
firmly  believe  that  I  cannot  possibly  be  admitted  this  year  into 
the  Ecole  Poly  technique.  I  feel  quite  superstitious  about  it. 
I  have  but  one  pleasure,  your  letters  and  those  from  my  family. 
Oh  !  do  write  often,  very  long  letters  !  " 

Chappuis,  concerned  at  this  sudden  resolve,  answered  in 
terms  that  did  credit  to  his  heart  and  youthful  wisdom. 
"Consult  your  tastes,  think  of  the  present,  of  the  future. 
You  must  think  of  yourself ;  it  is  your  own  fate  that  you  have 
to  direct.  There  is  more  glitter  on  the  one  side ;  on  the  other 
the  gentle  quiet  life  of  a  professor,  a  trifle  monotonous  perhaps, 
but  full  of  charm  for  him  who  knows  how  to  enjoy  it.  You  too 
appreciated  it  formerly,  and  I  learned  to  do  so  when  we  thought 
we  should  both  go  the  same  way.  Anyhow,  go  where  you 
think  you  will  be  happy,  and  think  of  me  sometimes.  I  hope 
your  father  will  not  blame  me.  I  believe  he  looks  upon  me  as 
your  evil  genius.  These  last  holidays  I  wanted  you  to  come  to 
me ,  then  I  advised  you  to  go  to  Paris ;  each  time  your  father 
created  some  obstacle  !  But  do  what  he  wishes,  and  never 
forget  that  it  is  perhaps  because  he  loves  you  too  much  that  he 
never  does  what  you  ask  him." 

Pasteur  soon  thought  no  more  of  his  Polytechnic  fancy, 
and  gave  himself  up  altogether  to  his  preparation  for  the 
Ecole  Normale.  But  the  study  of  mathematics  seemed  to  him 
dry  and  exhausting.  He  wrote  in  April,  "  One  ends  by  having 
nothing  but  figures,  formulas  and  geometrical  forms  before 
one's  eyes.  .  .  .  On  Thursday  I  went  out  and  I  read  a  charm- 
ing story,  which,  much  to  my  astonishment,  made  me  weep. 
I  had  not  done  such  a  thing  for  years.     Such  is  life." 

On  August  13,  1842,  he  went  up  for  his  examination 
(baccalaureat  es  sciences)  before  the  Dijon  Faculty.  He 
passed  less  brilliantly  even  than  he  had  done  for  the 
haccalaureat  es  lettres.  In  chemistry  he  was  only  put  down 
as  "  mediocre."  On  August  26  he  was  declared  admissible  to 
the  examinations  for  the  Ecole  Normale.  But  he  was  only 
fifteenth  out  of  twenty -two  candidates.  He  considered  this 
too  low  a  place,  and  resolved  to  try  again  the  following  year. 
In  October,  1842,  he  started  for  Paris  with  Chappuis.  On  the 
eve  of  his  departure  Louis  drew  a  last  pastel,  a  portrait  of  his 


1822—1843  21 

father.  It  is  a  powerful  face,  with  observation  and  meditation 
apparent  in  the  eyes,  strength  and  caution  in  the  mouth  and 
chin. 

Pasteur  arrived  at  the  Barbet  Boarding  School,  no  longer 
a  forlorn  lad,  but  a  tall  student  capable  of  teaching  and  engaged 
for  that  purpose.  He  only  paid  one-third  of  the  pupil's  fees, 
and  in  return  had  to  give  to  the  younger  pupils  some  instruction 
in  mathematics  every  morning  from  six  to  seven.  His  room 
was  not  in  the  school,  but  in  the  same  Impasse  des  Feuillan- 
tines ;  two  pupils  shared  it  with  him. 

"  Do  not  be  anxious  about  my  health  and  work,"  he  wrote 
to  his  frien(3s  a  few  days  after  his  arrival.  "I  need  hardly 
get  up  till  5.45;  you  see  it  is  not  so  very  early."  He  went 
on  outlining  the  programme  of  his  time.  "  I  shall  spend  my 
Thursdays  in  a  neighbouring  library  with  Chappuis,  who  has 
four  hours  to  himself  on  that  day.  On  Sundays  we  shall  walk 
and  work  a  little  together ;  we  hope  to  do  some  Philosophy 
on  Sundays,  perhaps  too  on  Thursdays ;  I  shall  also  read  some 
literary  works.  Surely  you  must  see  that  I  am  not  homesick 
this  time." 

Besides  attending  the  classes  of  the  Lycee  St.  Louis,  he  also 
went  to  the  Sorbonne  ^  to  hear  the  Professor,  who,  after  taking 
Gay-Lussac's  place  in  1832,  had  for  the  last  ten  years  delighted 
his  audience  by  an  eloquence  and  talent  which  opened  bound- 
less horizons  before  every  mind. 

In  a  letter  dated  December  9, 1842,  Pasteur  wrote,  "  I  attend 
at  the  Sorbonne  the  lectures  of  M.  Dumas,  a  celebrated 
chemist.  You  cannot  imagine  what  a  crowd  of  people  come  to 
these  lectures.  The  room  is  immense,  and  always  quite  full. 
Vv^e  have  to  be  there  half  an  hour  before  the  time  to  get  a  good 
place,  as  you  would  in  a  theatre ;  there  is  also  a  great  deal  of 
applause ;  there   are    always    six    or  seven    hundred   people." 

^  Sorbonne.  Name  given  to  the  Paris  Faculty  of  Theology  and  the 
buildings  in  which  it  was  established.  It  was  originally  intended  by  its 
founder,  Robert  de  Sorbon  (who  was  chaplain  to  St.  Louis,  King  of 
France,  1270)  as  a  special  establishment  to  facilitate  theological  studies 
for  poor  students.  This  college  became  one  of  the  most  celebrated  in  the 
world,  and  produced  so  many  clever  theologians  that  it  gave  its  name  to 
all  the  members  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology.  It  was  closed  during  the 
Revolution  in  1789,  and  its  buildings,  which  had  been  restored  by 
Richelieu  in  the  seventeenth  century,  were  given  to  the  Universite  in 
1808.  Since  1821  they  have  been  the  seat  of  the  Universitarian  Academy 
of  Parisj  and  used  for  the  lectures  of  the  Faculties  of  Theology,  of 
Letters,  and  of  Sciences.     [Trans.] 


22  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Under  this  rostrum,  Pasteur  became,  in  his  own  words,   a 
"disciple  "  full  of  the  enthusiasm  inspired  by  Dumas. 

Happy  in  this  industrious  life,  he  wTote  in  response  to  an 
expression  of  his  parents'  provincial  uneasiness  as  to  the 
temptations  of  the  Latin  Quarter.  "  When  one  wishes  to  keep 
straight,  one  can  do  so  in  this  place  as  well  as  in  any  other ;  it 
is  those  who  have  no  strength  of  will  that  succumb." 

He  made  himself  so  useful  at  Barbet's  that  he  was  soon 
kept  free  of  all  expense.  But  the  expenses  of  his  Parisian  life 
are  set  out  in  a  small  list  made  about  that  time.  His  father 
wished  him  to  dine  at  the  Palais  Koyal  on  Thursdays  and 
Sundays  with  Chappuis,  and  the  price  of  each  of  those  dinners 
came  to  a  little  less  than  two  francs.  He  had,  still  with  the 
inseparable  Chappuis,  gone  four  times  to  the  theatre  and  once 
to  the  opera.  He  had  also  hired  a  stove  for  his  stone-floored 
room ;  for  eight  francs  he  had  bought  some  firewood,  and  also  a 
two-franc  cloth  for  his  table,  which  he  said  had  holes  in  it, 
and  was  not  convenient  to  write  on. 

At  the  end  of  the  school  year,  1843,  he  took  at  the  Lycee 
St.  Louis  two  "  Accessits,"  ^  and  one  first  prize  in  physics, 
and  at  the  "  Concours  General"^  a  sixth  "  Accessit "  in 
physics.  He  was  admitted  fourth  on  the  list  to  the  Ecole 
Normale.  He  then  wrote  from  Arbois  to  M.  Barbet,  telling 
him  that  on  his  half-holidays  he  would  give  some  lessons  at 
the  school  of  the  Impasse  des  Feuillantines  as  a  small  token 
of  his  gratitude  for  past  kindness.  "  My  dear  Pasteur," 
answered  M.  Barbet,  "  I  accept  with  pleasure  the  offer  you 
have  made  me  to  give  to  my  school  some  of  the  leisure  that 
you  will  have  during  your  stay  at  the  Ecole  Normale.  It  will 
indeed  be  a  means  of  frequent  and  intimate  intercourse 
between  us,  in  which  we  shall  both  find  much  advantage." 

Pasteur  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  enter  the  Ecole  Normale 
that  he  arrived  in  Paris  some  days  before  the  other  students. 
He  solicited  permission  to  come  in  as  another  might  have 
begged  permission  to  come  out.  He  was  readily  allowed  to 
sleep  in  the  empty  dormitory.  His  first  visit  w^as  to  M.  Barbet. 
The  Thursday  half -holiday,  usually  from  one  to  seven,  was 

1  Accessit.  A  distinction  accorded  in  French  schools  to  those  who 
have  come  nearest  to  obtaining  the  prize  in  any  given  subject.     [Trans.] 

^  Concours  General.  An  open  competition  held  every  year  at  the  Sor- 
bonne  between  the  elite  of  the  students  of  all  the  colleges  in  France, 
from  the  highest  classes  down  to  the  quatrieme.     [Trans.] 


1822—1843  23 

now  from  one  to  eight.  "There  is  nothing  more  simple,"  he 
said,  "  than  to  come  regularly  at  six  o'clock  on  Thursdays  and 
give  the  schoolboys  a  physical  science  class." 

"I  am  very  pleased,"  wrote  his  father,  "that  you  are 
giving  lessons  at  M.  Barbet's.  He  has  been  so  kind  to  us  that 
I  was  anxious  that  you  should  show  him  some  gratitude ;  be 
therefore  always  most  obliging  towards  him.  You  should  do 
so ,  not  only  for  your  own  sake ,  but  for  others ;  it  will 
encourage  him  to  show  the  same  kindness  to  other  studious 
young  men,  whose  future  might  depend  upon  it." 

Generosity,    self-sacrifice,     kindliness    even    to     unknown 
strangers,  cost  not  the  least  effort  to  the  father  and  son,  but 
seemed  to  them   the  most  natural   thing   possible.     Just   as 
their  little  house  at  Arbois  was  transformed  by  a  ray  of  the 
ideal,  the  ]i)roken  down  walls  of  the  old  Ecole  Normale — then 
a  sort  of  annexe  of  the  Louis  Le  Grand  college,  and  looking, 
said  Jules  Simon,  like  an  old  hospital  or  barracks — reflected 
within  them  the  ideas   and  sentiments  which  inspire  useful 
lives.     Joseph  Pasteur  wrote  (Nov.  18,  1843)  :  "The  details 
you  give  me  on  the  way  your  work  is  directed  please  me  very 
much ;    everything    seems    organized    so    as    to    produce    dis- 
tinguished scholars.     Honour  be  to  those  who  founded  this 
School."     Only  one  thing  troubled  him,  he  mentioned  it  in 
every  letter.     "You  know  how  we  worry  about  your  health; 
you  do  work  so  immoderately.     Are   you    not   injuring    your 
eyesight  by  so  much  night  work?     Your  ambition  ought  to  be 
satisfied  now  that  you  have  reached  your  present  position  !  ' ' 
He  also  wrote  to  Chappuis  :   "  Do  tell  Louis  not  to  work  so 
much  ;  it  is  not  good  to  strain  one's  brain.     That  is  not  the  way 
to  succeed  but  to  compromise  one's  health."     And  with  some 
little  irony  as  to  the  cogitations  of  Chappuis  the  philosopher  : 
"  Believe  me,  you  are  but  poor  philosophers  if  you  do  not  know 
that  one  can  be  happy  even  as  a  poor  professor  in   Arbois 
College." 

Another  letter,  December,  1843,  to  his  son  this  time  :  "  Tell 
Chappuis  that  I  have  bottled  some  1834  bought  on  purpose  to 
drink  the  health  of  the  Ecole  Normale  during  the  next  holidays. 
There  is  more  wit  in  those  100  litres  than  in  all  the  books  on 
philosophy  in  the  world;  but,  as  to  mathematical  formulae, 
there  are  none,  I  believe.  Mind  you  tell  him  that  we  shall 
drink  the  first  bottle  with  him.  Eemain  two  good  friends." 
Pasteur's  letters  during  this  first  period  at  the  Normale  have 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

been  lost,  but  his  biography  continues  without  a  break,  thanks 
to  the  letters  of  his  father.  "  Tell  us  always  about  your  studies, 
about  your  doings  at  Barbet's.  Do  you  still  attend  M.  Pouillet's 
lectures,  or  do  you  find  that  one  science  hampers  the  other? 
I  should  think  not ;  on  the  contrary,  one  should  be  a  help  to 
the  other."  This  observation  should  be  interesting  to  a  student 
of  heredity  ;  the  idea  casually  mentioned  by  the  father  was  to 
receive  a  vivid  demonstration  in  the  life-work  of  the  son. 


CHAPTER    II 

1844—1849 

Pasteur  often  spent  his  leisure  moments  in  the  Hbrary  of 
the  Ecole  Normale.  Those  who  knew  him  at  that  time  remem- 
ber him  as  grave,  quiet,  almost  shy.  But  under  these  reflec- 
tive characteristics  lay  the  latent  fire  of  enthusiasm.  The 
lives  of  illustrious  men,  of  great  scientists,  of  great  patriots 
inspired  him  with  a  generous  ardour.  To  this  ardour  he  added 
a  great  eagerness  of  mind ;  whether  studying  a  book,  even  a 
commonplace  one — for  he  was  so  conscientious  that  he  did  not 
even  know  what  it  was  to  ' '  skim  ' '  through  a  book — or  coming 
away  from  one  of  J.  B.  Dumas'  lectures,  or  writing  his 
student's  notes  in  his  small  fine  handwriting,  he  was  always 
thirsting  to  learn  more,  to  devote  himself  to  great  researches. 
There  seemed  to  him  no  better  way  of  spending  a  holiday  than 
to  be  shut  up  all  Sunday  afternoon  at  the  Sorbonne  laboratory 
or  coaxing  a  private  lesson  from  the  celebrated  Barruel,  Dumas' 
curator. 

Chappuis — anxious  to  obey  the  injunctions  of  Pasteur's 
father,  who  in  every  letter  repeated  "  Do  not  let  him  work 
too  much  !  "  desirous  also  of  enjoying  a  few  hours'  outing  with 
his  friend — used  to  wait  philosophically,  sitting  on  a  laboratory 
stool,  until  the  experiments  were  over.  Conquered  by  this 
patient  attitude  and  reproachful  silence  Pasteur  would  take  off 
his  apron 5  saying  half  angrily,  half  gratefully,  "  Well,  let  us  go 
for  a  walk."  And,  when  they  were  out  in  the  street,  the  same 
serious  subjects  of  conversation  would  inevitably  crop  up — 
classes,  lectures,  readings,  etc. 

One  day,  in  the  course  of  those  long  talks  in  the  gardens  of 
the  Luxembourg,  Pasteur  carried  Chappuis  with  him  very  far 
away  from  philosophy.  He  began  to  talk  of  tartaric  acid  and 
of  paratartaric  acid.  The  former  had  been  known  since  1770, 
thanks  to  the  Swedish  chemist  Scheele,  who  discovered  it  in 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  thick  crusty  formations  within  wine  barrels  called  "  tar- 
tar "  ;  but  the  latter  was  disconcerting  to  chemists.  In  1820 
an  Alsatian  manufacturer,  Kestner,  had  obtained  by  chance, 
whilst  preparing  tartaric  acid  in  his  factory  at  Thann,  a  very 
singular  acid  which  he  was  unable  to  reproduce  in  spite  of 
various  attempts.  He  had  kept  some  of  it  in  stock.  Gay- 
Lussac,  having  visited  the  Thann  factory  in  1826,  studied  this 
mysterious  acid  ;  he  proposed  to  call  it  racemic  acid.  Berzelius 
studied  it  in  his  turn,  and  preferred  to  call  it  paratartaric. 
Either  name  may  be  adopted ;  it  is  exactly  the  same  thing  : 
men  of  letters  or  in  society  are  equally  frightened  by  the  word 
paratartaric  or  racemic.  Chappuis  certainly  was  when  Pasteur 
repeated  to  him  word  for  word  a  paragraph  by  a  Berlin  chemist 
and  crystallographer  named  Mitscherlich.  Pasteur  had  pon- 
dered over  this  paragraph  until  he  knew  it  by  heart ;  often 
indeed,  absorbed  in  reading  the  reports  for  1844  of  the 
Academie  des  Sciences,  in  the  dark  room  which  was  then  the 
library  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  he  had  wondered  if  it  were  pos- 
sible to  get  over  a  difficulty  which  seemed  insurmountable  to 
scientists  such  as  Mitscherlich  and  Biot.  This  paragraph 
related  to  two  saline  combinations — tartrate  and  paratartrate 
of  soda  or  ammonia — and  may  be  epitomized  as  follows  :  in 
these  two  substances  of  similar  crystalline  form,  the  nature  and 
number  of  the  atoms,  their  arrangement  and  distances  are  the 
same.  Yet  dissolved  tartrate  rotates  the  plane  of  polarized 
light  and  paratartrate  remains  inactive. 

Pasteur  had  the  gift  of  making  scientific  problems  interest- 
ing in  a  few  words,  even  to  minds  least  inclined  to  that  particu- 
lar line  of  thought.  He  rendered  his  listener's  attention  very 
easy ;  no  question  surprised  him  and  he  never  smiled  at  ignor- 
ance. Though  Chappuis,  absorbed  in  the  series  of  lectures  on 
philosophy  given  at  that  time  by  Jules  Simon,  was  deep  in  a 
train  of  thought  very  far  away  from  Mitscherlich 's  perplexities, 
he  gradually  became  interested  in  this  optical  inactivity  of  para- 
tartrate, which  so  visibly  affected  his  friend.  Pasteur  liked  to 
look  back  into  the  history  of  things,  giving  in  this  way  a 
veritable  life  to  his  explanations.  Thus,  a  propos  of  the  optical 
phenomenon  which  puzzled  Mitscherlich,  Pasteur  was  speak- 
ing to  his  friend  of  crystallized  carbonate  of  lime,  called  Iceland 
spar,  which  presents  a  double  refraction — that  is  to  say  :  if  you 
look  at  an  object  through  this  crystal,  you  perceive  two  repro- 
ductions of  that  object.     In  describing  this,  Pasteur  was  not 


1844—1849  27 

giving  to  Chappuis  a  vague  notion  of  some  piece  of  crystal 
in  a  glass  case,  but  was  absolutely  evoking  a  vision  of  the  beauti- 
ful crystal,  perfectly  pure  and  transparent,  brought  from  Ice- 
land in  1669  to  a  Danish  physicist.  Pasteur  almost  seemed  to 
experience  the  surprise  and  emotion  of  this  scientist,  when, 
observing  a  ray  of  light  through  this  crystal,  he  saw  it  sud- 
denly duplicated.  Pasteur  also  spoke  enthusiastically  of  an 
officer  of  Engineers  under  the  First  Empire,  Etienne  Louis 
Malus.  Malus  was  studying  double  refraction,  and  holding  in 
his  hands  a  piece  of  spar  crystal,  when,  from  his  room  in  the 
Eue  de  I'Enfer,  it  occurred  to  him  to  observe  through  the 
crystal  the  windows  of  the  Luxembourg  Palace,  then  lighted 
up  by  the  setting  sun.  It  was  sufficient  to  make  the  crystal 
rotate  slowly  round  the  visual  ray  (as  on  an  axis)  to  perceive 
the  periodic  variations  in  the  intensity  of  the  light  reflected 
by  the  windows.  No  one  had  yet  suspected  that  light,  after 
being  reflected  under  certain  conditions,  would  acquire  proper- 
ties quite  different  from  those  it  had  before  its  reflection. 
Malus  gave  the  name  of  polarized  light  to  light  thus  modified 
(by  reflection  in  this  particular  case).  Scientists  admitted  in 
those  days,  in  the  theory  of  emission,  the  existence  of  luminous 
molecules,  and  they  imagined  that  these  molecules  "  suffered 
the  same  effects  simultaneously  when  they  had  been  reflected 
on  glass  at  a  certain  angle.  .  .  .  They  were  all  turned  in  the 
same  direction."  Pouillet,  speaking  of  this  discovery  of  Malus 
in  the  class  on  physics  that  Pasteur  attended,  explained  that 
the  consequent  persuasion  was  ' '  that  those  molecules  had  rota- 
tory axes  and  poles,  around  which  their  movements  could  be 
accomplished  under  certain  influences." 

Pasteur  spoke  feverishly  of  his  regrets  that  Malus  should 
have  died  at  thirty-seven  in  the  midst  of  his  researches ;  of 
Biot,  and  of  Arago,  who  became  illustrious  in  the  path  opened 
by  Malus.  He  explained  to  Chappuis  that,  by  means  of  a 
polarizing  apparatus,  it  could  be  seen  that  certain  quartz 
crystals  deflected  to  the  right  the  plane  of  polarized  light,  whilst 
others  caused  it  to  turn  to  the  left.  Chappuis  also  learned  that 
some  natural  organic  material,  such  as  solutions  of  sugar  or  of 
tartaric  acid,  when  placed  in  such  an  apparatus,  turned  to  the 
right  the  plane  of  polarization,  whilst  others,  like  essence  of 
turpentine  or  quinine,  deflected  it  to  the  left;  whence  the  ex- 
pression "  rotatory  polarization." 

These  would  seem  dry  researches,  belonging  altogether  to 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  domain  of  science.  And  yet,  thanks  to  the  saccharimeter, 
which  is  a  polarizing  apparatus,  a  manufacturer  can  ascertain 
the  quantity  of  pure  sugar  contained  in  the  brown  sugar  of 
commerce,  and  a  physiologist  can  follow  the  progress  of 
diabetes. 

Chappuis,  who  knew  what  powers  of  investigation  his  friend 
could  bring  to  bear  on  the  problem  enunciated  by  Mitscherlich, 
thought  with  regret  that  the  prospect  of  such  examinations  as 
that  for  the  licence  and  for  the  agregation  did  not  allow  Pasteur 
to  concentrate  all  his  forces  on  such  a  special  scientific  point. 
But  Pasteur  was  resolved  to  come  back  definitely  to  this  sub- 
ject as  soon  as  he  should  have  become  "  docteur  es  sciences." 

When  writing  to  his  father  he  did  not  dwell  upon  tartrate  and 
paratartrate ;  but  his  ambition  was  palpable.  He  was  ever 
eager  to  do  double  work,  to  go  up  for  his  examination  at  the 
very  earliest.  "  Before  being  a  captain,"  answered  the  old 
sergeant-major,  "  you  must  become  a  lieutenant." 

These  letters  give  one  the  impression  of  living  amongst 
those  lives,  perpetually  reacting  upon  each  other.  The  thoughts 
of  the  whole  family  were  centred  upon  the  great  School,  where 
that  son,  that  brother,  was  working,  in  whom  the  hopes  of 
each  were  placed.  If  one  of  his  bulky  letters  with  the  large 
post  mark  was  too  long  in  coming,  his  father  wrote  to  reproach 
him  gently  :  "  Your  sisters  were  counting  the  days.  Eighteen 
days,  they  said!  Louis  has  never  kept  us  waiting  so  long! 
Can  he  be  ill?  It  is  a  great  joy  to  me,"  adds  the  father,  "to 
note  your  attachment  to  each  other.    May  it  always  remain  so." 

The  mother  had  no  time  to  write  much ;  she  was  burdened 
with  all  the  cares  of  the  household  and  with  keeping  the  books 
of  the  business.  But  she  watched  for  the  postman  with  a 
tender  anxiety  increased  by  her  vivid  imagination.  Her 
thoughts  were  ever  with  the  son  whom  she  loved,  not  with  a 
selfish  love,  but  for  himself,  sharing  his  happiness  in  that  he 
was  working  for  a  useful  career. 

So,  between  that  corner  in  the  Jura  and  the  Ecole  Normale, 
there  was  a  continual  exchange  of  thoughts ;  the  smallest  inci- 
dents of  daily  life  were  related.  The  father,  knowing  that  he 
should  inform  the  son  of  the  fluctuations  of  the  family  budget, 
spoke  of  his  more  or  less  successful  sales  of  leathers  at  the 
Besan^on  fair.  The  son  was  ever  hunting  in  the  progress  of 
industry  anything  that  could  tend  to  lighten  the  father's  heavy 
handicraft.     But  though  the  father  declared  himself  ready  to 


1844—1849  29 

examine  Vauquelin's  new  tanning  process,  which  obviated  the 
necessity  of  keeping  the  skins  so  long  in  the  pits,  he  asked 
himself  with  scrupulous  anxiety  whether  leathers  prepared  in 
that  way  would  last  as  long  as  the  others.  Could  he  safely 
guarantee  them  to  the  shoemakers,  who  were  unanimous  in 
praising  the  goods  of  the  little  tannery-yard,  but  alas  equally 
unanimous  in  forgetting  to  reward  the  disinterested  tanner  by 
prompt  payment?  He  supplied  his  family  with  the  neces- 
saries of  life  :  what  more  did  he  want?  When  he  had  news 
of  his  NormaUen  he  was  thoroughly  happy.  He  associated 
himself  with  his  son's  doings,  sharing  his  enthusiasm  over 
Dumas'  lectures,  and  taking  an  interest  in  Pouillet's  classes  : 
Pouillet  was  a  Franc-Comtois,  and  had  been  a  student  at  the 
Ecole  Normale ;  he  was  now  Professor  of  Physics  at  the  Sor- 
bonne  and  a  member  of  the  Institut}  When  Balard,  a 
lecturer  at  the  Ecole,  was  nominated  to  the  Academic  des 
Sciences,  Louis  told  his  father  of  it  with  the  delight  of  an 
admiring  pupil. 

Like  J.  B.  Dumas,  Balard  had  been  an  apothecary's  pupil. 
When  he  spoke  of  their  humble  beginnings,  Dumas  was  wont 
to  say  rather  pompously — "  Balard  and  I  were  initiated  into 
our  scientific  life  under  the  same  conditions."  When,  at  the 
age  of  forty-two,  he  was  made  a  member  of  the  Institute, 
Balard  could  not  contain  his  joy  ;  he  was  quite  a  Southerner  in 
his  language  and  gestures,  and  the  adjective  exuberant  might 
have  been  invented  for  him.  But  this  same  Southerner,  ever 
on  the  move  as  he  was,  belonged  to  a  special  race  :  he  always 
kept  his  word.  "I  was  glad  to  note  your  pleasure  at  this 
nomination,"  wrote  Joseph  Pasteur  to  his  son;   "it  proves 

^  Institut  de  France.  Name  given  collectively  to  the  five  following 
societies — 

1.  Academie  Frangaise,  founded  by  Riclielieu  in  1635  in  order  to 
polish  and  maintain  the  purity  of  the  French  language.  It  is  composed 
of  forty  Life  members,  and  publishes  from  time  to  time  a  dictionary 
which  is  looked  upon  as  a  standard  test  of  correct  French. 

2.  Academie  des  Inscriptions  et  Belles  Lettres,  founded  by  Colbert  in 
1663. 

3.  Academie  des  Sciences,  also  founded  by  Colbert  in  1666.  It  has 
published  most  valuable  reports  ever  since  1699. 

4.  Academie  des  Beaux-Arts,  which  includes  the  Academies  of  Paint- 
ing, of  Sculpture,  of  Music,  and  of  Architecture. 

5.  Academie  des  Sciences  Morales  et  Politiques. 

It  was  in  1795  that  these  ancient  academies,  which  had  been  sup- 
pressed two  years  before  by  the  Revolution,  were  reorganized  and  com- 
bined together  to  form  the  Institut  de  France.     [Trans.] 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

that  you  are  grateful  to  your  masters."  About  that  same  time 
the  headmaster  of  Arbois  College,  M.  Eomanet,  used  to  read 
out  to  the  older  boys  the  letters,  always  full  of  gratitude,  which 
he  received  from  Louis  Pasteur.  These  letters  reflected  life 
in  Paris,  such  as  Pasteur  understood  it — a  life  of  hard  work 
and  exalted  ambition.  M.  Eomanet,  in  one  of  his  replies, 
asked  him  to  become  librarian  in  partihus  for  the  college  and 
to  choose  and  procure  books  on  science  and  literature.  The 
headmaster  also  begged  of  the  young  man  some  lectures  for 
the  rhetorique  class  during  the  holidays.  "It  would  seem  to 
the  boys  like  an  echo  of  the  Sorbonne  lectures  !  And  you 
would  speak  to  us  of  our  great  scientific  men,"  added  M. 
Romanet,  "  amongst  w^hom  we  shall  one  day  number  him  who 
once  was  one  of  our  best  pupils  and  will  ever  remain  one  of 
our  best  friends." 

A  corresponding  member  of  Arbois  College,  and  retained  as 
vacation  lecturer,  Pasteur  now  undertook  a  yet  more  special 
task.  He  had  often  heard  his  father  deplore  his  own  lack  of 
instruction,  and  knew  well  the  elder  man's  desire  for  know- 
ledge. By  a  touching  exchange  of  parts,  the  child  to  whom 
his  father  had  taught  his  alphabet  now  became  his  father's 
teacher ;  but  with  what  respect  and  what  delicacy  did  this  filial 
master  express  himself !  "  It  is  in  order  that  you  may  be  able 
to  help  Josephine  that  I  am  sending  you  this  work  to  do."  He 
took  most  seriously  his  task  of  tutor  by  correspondence ;  the 
papers  he  sent  were  not  always  easy.  His  father  wrote  (Jan. 
2,  1845) — "I  have  spent  two  days  over  a  problem  which  I 
afterwards  found  quite  easy ;  it  is  no  trifle  to  learn  a  thing  and 
teach  it  directly  afterwards."  And  a  month  later  :  "  Josephine 
does  not  care  to  rack  her  brains ,  she  says ;  however  I  promise 
you  that  you  will  be  pleased  with  her  progress  by  the  next 
holidays." 

The  father  would  often  sit  up  late  at  night  over  rules  of 
grammar  and  mathematical  problems,  preparing  answers  to 
send  to  his  boy  in  Paris. 

Some  Arboisians,  quite  forgotten  now,  imagined  that  they 
would  add  lustre  to  the  local  history.  General  Baron  Delort, 
a  peer  of  France,^  aide  de  camp  to  Louis  Philippe,  Grand  Cross 

*  Peers  of  France.  A  supreme  Council  formed  originally  of  the  First 
Vassals  of  the  Crown;  became  in  1420  one  of  the  Courts  of  Parliament. 
In  1789  the  Peerage  was  suppressed,  but  reinstated  in  1814  by  the 
Restoration,  when  it  again  formed  part  of  the  Legislative  Corps;  there 
were    then    hereditary    peers    and    life-peers.     In    1831    the    hereditary 


1844—1849  31 

of  the  Legion  of  Honour  and  the  first  personage  in  Arbois— 
where  he  beguiled  his  old  age  by  translating  Horace— used  to 
go  across  the  Cuisance  bridge  without  so  much  as  glancing  at 
the  tannery  where  the  Pasteur  family  lived.  Whilst  the 
general  in  his  thoughts  bequeathed  to  the  town  of  Arbois  his 
books,  his  papers,  his  decorations,  even  his  uniform,  he  was 
far  from  foreseeing  that  the  httle  dwelling  by  the  bridge  would 
one  day  become  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes. 

Months  went  by  and  happy  items  of  news  succeeded  one 
another.  The  Normalien  was  chiefly  interested  in  the  trans- 
formations of  matter,  and  was  practising  in  order  to  become 
capable  of  assisting  in  experiments ;  difficulties  only  stimulated 
him.  At  the  chemistry  class  that  he  attended,  the  process  of 
obtaining  phosphorus  was  merely  explained,  on  account  of  the 
length  of  time  necessary  to  obtain  this  elementary  substance ; 
Pasteur,  with  his  patience  and  desire  for  proven  knowledge, 
was  not  satisfied.  He  therefore  bought  some  bones,  burnt 
them,  reduced  them  to  a  very  fine  ash,  treated  this  ash  with 
sulphuric  acid,  and  carefully  brought  the  process  to  its  close. 
What  a  triumph  it  seemed  to  him  when  ke  had  in  his  posses- 
sion sixty  grammes  of  phosphorus ,  extracted  from  bones ,  which 
he  could  put  into  a  phial  labelled  "  phosphorus."  This  was  his 
first  scientific  joy. 

Whilst  his  comrades  ironically  (but  with  some  discernment) 
called  him  a  "  laboratory  pillar,"  some  of  them,  more  intent 
upon  their  examinations,  were  getting  ahead  of  him. — M. 
Darboux,  the  present  "doyen"  of  the  Faculty  ^  of  Science, 
finds  in  the  Sorbonne  registers  that  Pasteur  was  placed  7th  at 
the  licence  examination  ;  two  other  students  having  obtained 
equal  marks  with  him,  the  jury  (Balard,  Dumas  and  Delafosse), 
mentioned  his  name  after  theirs. 

Those  who  care  for  archives  would  find  in  the  Journal 
General  de  V Instruction  Puhlique  of  September  17,  1846,  a 
report  of  the  agregation^  competition  (physical  science).  Out 
peerage  was  abolished  and  life-peers  were  nominated  by  the  King  under 
certain  restrictions.  This  House  of  Peers  was  suppressed  in  1848,  and 
in  1852  the  Senate  was  instituted  in  its  stead.     [Trans.] 

^  Facultes,  Government  establishments  for  superior  studies ;  there  are 
in  France  Faculties  of  Theology,  of  Law,  of  Medicine,  of  Sciences  and 
of  Letters,  distributed  among  the  larger  provincial  towns  as  well  as  in 
Paris.  The  administrator  of  a  faculty  is  styled  doyen  (dean)  and  is 
chosen  among  the  professors.     [Trans.] 

^  Agregation.  An  annual  competition  for  recruiting  professors  for 
faculties  and  secondary  schools  or  lycees.     A  candidate  for  the  lycees 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

of  fourteen  candidates  only  four  passed  and  Pasteur  was  the 
third.  His  lessons  on  physics  and  chemistry  caused  the  jury 
to  say,  "  He  will  make  an  excellent  professor." 

Many  Normaliens  of  that  time  fancied  themselves  called  to 
a  destiny  infinitely  superior  to  his.  Some  of  them,  in  later 
times,  used  to  complacently  allude  to  this  momentary 
superiority  when  speaking  to  their  pupils.  Of  all  Pasteur's 
acquaintances  Chappuis  was  the  only  one  who  divined  the 
future.  "  You  will  see  what  Pasteur  will  be,"  he  used  to  say, 
with  an  assurance  generally  attributed  to  friendly  partiality. 
Chappuis — Pasteur's  confidant — was  well  aware  of  his  friend's 
powers  of  concentration. 

Balard  also  realised  this  ;  he  had  the  happy  idea  of  taking  the 
young  agrege  into  his  laboratory,  and  intervened  vehemently 
when  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  desired — a  few  months 
later — that  Pasteur  should  teach  physics  in  the  Tournon  Lycee. 
It  would  be  rank  folly,  Balard  declared,  to  send  500  kilometres 
away  from  Paris  a  youth  who  only  asked  for  the  modest  title  of 
curator,  and  had  no  ambition  but  to  work  from  morning  till 
night,  preparing  for  his  doctor's  degree.  There  would  be  time 
to  send  him  away  later  on.  It  was  impossible  to  resist  this 
torrent  of  words  founded  on  solid  sense.     Balard  prevailed. 

Pasteur  was  profoundly  grateful  to  him  for  preserving  him 
from  exile  to  the  little  town  in  Ardeche  ;  and ,  as  he  added  to  his 
Franc-Comtois  patience  and  reflective  mind  a  childlike  heart 
and  deep  enthusiasm ,  he  was  delighted  to  remain  with  a  master 
like  Balard,  who  had  become  celebrated,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four,  as  the  discoverer  of  bromin. 

At  the  end  of  1846,  a  newcomer  entered  Balard's  laboratory, 
a  strange  delicate-looking  man,  whose  ardent  eyes  were  at 
the  same  time  proud  and  yet  anxious.  This  man,  a  scientist 
and  a  poet,  was  a  professor  of  the  Bordeaux  Faculty,  named 
Auguste  Laurent.  Perhaps  he  had  had  some  friction  with  his 
Bordeaux  chiefs,  possibly  he  merely  wished  for  a  change ;  at 
all  events,  he  now  desired  to  live  in  Paris.  Laurent  was 
already  known  in  the  scientific  world,  and  had  recently  been 
made  a  correspondent  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences.  He  had 
foreseen  and  confirmed  the  theory  of  substitutions,  formulated 
by  Dumas  as  early  as  1834  before  the  Academic.     Dumas  had 

agr6gation  must  have  passed  his  licence  examination,  and  a  candidate 
for  the  superior  agregation  must  be  in  possession  of  his  doctorate. 
[Trans.] 


1844—1849  33 

expressed  himself  thus  :  "  Chlorine  possesses  the  singular 
power  of  seizing  upon  the  hydrogen  in  certain  substances,  and 
of  taking  its  place  atom  by  atom." 

This  theory  of  substitutions  was — according  to  a  simple  and 
vivid  comparison  of  Pasteur's — a  way  of  looking  upon  chemical 
bodies  as  upon  ' '  molecular  edifices ,  in  which  one  element  could 
be  replaced  by  another  without  disturbing  the  structure  of  the 
edifice ;  as  if  one  were  to  replace,  one  by  one,  every  stone  of  a 
monument  by  a  new  stone."  Original  researches,  new  and 
bold  ideas,  appealed  to  Pasteur.  But  his  cautious  mind  pre- 
vented his  boldness  from  leading  him  into  errors,  surprises  or 
hasty  conclusions.  "That  is  possible,"  he  would  say,  "but 
we  must  look  more  deeply  into  the  subject." 

When  asked  by  Laurent  to  assist  him  with  some  experiments 
upon  certain  theories,  Pasteur  was  delighted  at  this  suggested 
collaboration,  and  wrote  to  his  friend  Chappuis  :  "  Even  if  the 
work  should  lead  to  no  results  worth  publishing,  it  will  be 
most  useful  to  me  to  do  practical  work  for  several  months  with 
such  an  experienced  chemist." 

It  was  partly  due  to  Laurent,  that  Pasteur  entered  more 
deeply  into  the  train  of  thought  which  was  to  lead  him  to 
grapple  with  Mitscherlich's  problem.  "One  day"  (this 
is  a  manuscript  note  of  Pasteur's)  "one  day  it  happened  that 
M.  Laurent — studying,  if  I  mistake  not,  some  tungstate  of 
soda,  perfectly  crystallized  and  prepared  from  the  directions  of 
another  chemist,  whose  results  he  was  verifying — showed  me 
through  the  microscope  that  this  salt,  apparently  very  pure, 
was  evidently  a  mixture  of  three  distinct  kinds  of  crystals ,  easily 
recognizable  with  a  little  experience  of  crystalline  forms.  The 
lessons  of  our  modest  and  excellent  professor  of  mineralogy,  M. 
Delafosse,  had  long  since  made  me  love  crystallography ;  so,  in 
order  to  acquire  the  habit  of  using  the  goniometer,  I  began  to 
carefully  study  the  formations  of  a  very  fine  series  of  combina- 
tions, all  very  easily  crystallized,  tartaric  acid  and  the 
tartrates."  He  appreciated  any  favourable  influence  on  his 
work ;  we  find  in  the  same  note  :  ' '  Another  motive  urged  me  to 
prefer  the  study  of  those  particular  forms.  M.  de  la  Provos- 
taye  had  just  published  an  almost  complete  work  concerning 
them ;  this  allowed  me  to  compare  as  I  went  along  my  own 
observations  with  those,  always  so  precise,  of  that  clever 
scientist." 

Pasteur  and  Laurent's  work  in  common  was  interrupted. 

D 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Laurent  was  appointed  as  Dumas'  assistant  at  the  Sorbonne. 
Pasteur  did  not  dwell  upon  his  own  disappointment,  but 
rejoiced  to  see  honour  bestowed  upon  a  man  whom  he  thought 
worthy  of  the  first  rank.  Some  judges  have  thought  that 
Laurent,  in  his  introductory  lesson,  was  too  eager  to  expound 
his  own  ideas ;  but  is  not  every  believer  an  apostle  ?  When  a 
mind  is  full  of  ideas,  it  naturally  overflows.  It  is  probable 
that  Pasteur  in  Lam'ent's  place  would  have  kept  his  part  as 
an  assistant  more  in  the  background.  He  did  not  give  vent  to 
the  slightest  criticism,  but  wrote  to  Chappuis.  "Laurent's 
lectures  are  as  bold  as  his  writings,  and  his  lessons  are  making 
a  great  sensation  amongst  chemists."  Whether  one  of 
criticism  or  of  approbation,  this  sensation  was  a  living  element 
of  success.  In  order  to  answer  some  insinuations  concerning 
Laurent's  ambition  and  constant  thirst  for  change,  Pasteur 
proclaimed  in  his  thesis  on  chemistry  how  much  he  had  been 
' '  enlightened  by  the  kindly  advice  of  a  man  so  distinguished , 
both  by  his  talent  and  by  his  character. ' ' 

This  essay  was  entitled  "Researches  into  the  saturation 
capacity  of  arsenious  acid.  A  study  of  the  arsenites  of  potash, 
soda  and  ammonia."  This,  to  Pasteur's  mind,  was  but  school- 
boy work.  He  had  not  yet,  he  said,  enough  practice  and 
experience  in  laboratory  work.  "In  physics,"  he  wrote  to 
Chappuis,  "I  shall  only  present  a  programme  of  some  re- 
searches that  I  mean  to  undertake  next  year,  and  that  I  merely 
indicate  in  my  essay." 

This  essay  on  physics  was  a  "  Study  of  pheiiomena  relative 
to  the  rotatory  polarization  of  liquids."  In  it  he  rendered  full 
homage  to  Biot,  pointing  out  the  importance  of  a  branch  of 
science  too  much  neglected  by  chemists ;  he  added  that  it  was 
most  useful,  in  order  to  throw  hght  upon  certain  difficult 
chemical  problems,  to  obtain  the  assistance  of  crystallography 
and  physics.  "  Such  assistance  is  especially  needed  in  the 
present  state  of  science." 

These  two  essays,  dedicated  to  his  father  and  mother,  were 
read  on  August  23,  1847.  He  only  obtained  one  white  ball  and 
two  red  ones  for  each.  "  We  cannot  judge  of  your  essays," 
wrote  his  father,  in  the  name  of  the  whole  family,  "  but  our 
satisfaction  is  no  less  great.  As  to  a  doctor's  degree,  I  was  far 
from  hoping  as  much ;  all  my  ambition  was  satisfied  with  the 
agregation."     Such     was     not     the     case     with     his     son. 


1844—1849  35 

"  Onwards  "  was  his  motto,  not  from  a  desire  for  a  diploma, 
but  from  an  insatiable  thirst  for  knowledge. 

After  spending  a  few  days  with  his  family  and  friends,  he 
wanted  to  go  to  Germany  with  Chappuis  to  study  German  from 
morning  till  night.  The  prospect  of  such  industrious  holidays 
enchanted  him.  But  he  had  forgotten  a  student's  debt.  "  I 
cannot  carry  out  my  project,"  he  sa'dly  wrote,  on  September 
3 ,  1847 ;  "  I  am  more  than  ruined  by  the  cost  of  printing  my 
thesis." 

On  his  return  to  Paris  he  shut  himself  up  in  the  laboratory. 
"I  am  extremely  happy.  I  shall  soon  publish  a  paper  on 
crystallography."     His  father  writes    (December   25,   1847)  : 

We  received  your  letter  yesterday ;  it  is  absolutely  satisfac- 
tory, but  it  could  not  be  otherwise  coming  from  you ;  you  have 
long,  indeed  ever,  been  all  satisfaction  to  me."  And  in 
response  to  his  son's  intentions  of  accomplishing  various  tasks, 
fully  understanding  that  nothing  will  stop  him  :  ' '  You  are 
doing  right  to  make  for  your  goal ;  it  was  only  out  of  excessive 
affection  that  I  have  often  written  in  another  sense.  I  only 
feared  that  you  might  succumb  to  your  work ;  so  many  noble 
youths  have  sacrificed  their  health  to  the  love  of  science. 
Knowing  you  as  I  do,  this  was  my  only  anxiety." 

After  being  reproved  for  excessive  work,  Louis  was  repri- 
manded for  too  much  affection  (January  1,  1848).  "  The 
presents  you  sent  have  just  arrived ;  I  shall  leave  it  to  your 
sisters  to  write  their  thanks.  For  my  part,  I  should  prefer 
a  thousand  times  that  this  money  should  still  be  in  your  purse, 
and  thence  to  a  good  restaurant,  spent  in  some  good  meals 
that  you  might  have  enjoyed  with  your  friends.  There  are 
not  many  parents,  my  dearest  boy,  who  have  to  write  such 
things  to  their  son  ;  my  satisfaction  in  you  is  indeed  deeper  than 
I  can  express."  At  the  end  of  this  same  letter,  the  mother 
adds  in  her  turn  :  "  My  darling  boy,  I  wish  you  a  happy  new 
year.  Take  great  care  of  your  health.  .  .  .  Think  what  a 
worry  it  is  to  me  that  I  cannot  be  with  you  to  look  after  you. 
Sometimes  I  try  to  console  myself  for  your  absence  by  thinking 
how  fortunate  I  am  in  having  a  child  able  to  raise  himself  to 
such  a  position  as  yours  is — such  a  happy  position,  as  it  seems 
to  be  from  your  last  letter  but  one."  And  in  a  strange  sen- 
tence, where  it  would  seem  that  a  presentiment  of  her  approach- 
ing death  made  worldly   things  appear  at  their  true  value  : 

D  2 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

' '  Whatever  happens  to  you ,  do  not  grieve ;  nothing  in  hfe  is 
more  than  a  chimera.     Farewell,  my  son." 

On  March  20,  1848,  Pasteur  read  to  the  Academic  des 
Sciences  a  portion  of  his  treatise  on  "Researches  on  Dimorph- 
is7n."  There  are  some  substances  which  crystallize  in  two 
different  ways.  Sulphur,  for  instance,  gives  quite  dissimilar 
crystals  according  to  whether  it  is  melted  in  a  crucible  or  dis- 
solved in  sulphide  of  carbon.  Those  substances  are  called 
dimorphous.  Pasteur,  kindly  aided  by  the  learned  M.  Dela- 
fosse  (with  his  usual  gratefulness  he  mentions  this  in  the  very 
first  pages)  had  made  out  a  list — as  complete  as  possible — of 
all  dimorphous  substances.  When  M.  Komanet,  of  Arbois 
College,  received  this  paper  he  was  quite  overwhelmed.  "  It 
is  much  too  stiff  for  you,"  he  said  with  an  infectious  modesty 
to  Vercel,  Charri^re,  and  Coulon,  Pasteur's  former  comrades. 
Perhaps  the  head  master  desired  to  palliate  his  own  incom- 
petence in  the  eyes  of  coming  generations,  for  on  the  title  page 
of  the  copy  of  Pasteur's  booklet  still  to  be  found  in  the  Arbois 
library,  he  wrote  this  remark,  which  he  signed  with  his  initial 
R,  : — "  Dimorphisme  ;  this  word  is  not  even  to  be  found  in  the 
Dictionnaire  de  VAcademie  "  !  !  The  approbation  of  several 
members  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences  compensated  for  the 
somewhat  summary  judgment  of  M.  Romanet,  whose  good 
wishes  continued  to  follow  the  rapid  course  of  his  old  pupil. 

After  this  very  special  study,  dated  at  the  beginning  of  1848, 
one  might  imagine  the  graduate-curator  closing  his  ears  to  all 
outside  rumours  and  little  concerned  with  political  agitation, 
but  that  would  be  doing  him  an  injustice.  Those  who  wit- 
nessed the  Revolution  of  1848  remember  how  during  the  early 
days  France  was  exalted  with  the  purest  patriotism.  Pasteur 
had  visions  of  a  generous  and  fraternal  Republic ;  the  words 
drapeau  and  patrie  moved  him  to  the  bottom  of  his  soul. 
Lamartine  ^  as  a  politician  inspired  him  with  an  enthusiastic 
confidence ;  he  delighted  in  the  sight  of  a  poet  leader  of  men. 
Many  others  shared  the  same  illusions.  France,  as  Louis 
Veuillot  has  it,  made  the  mistake  of  choosing  her  band-master 

^  This  celebrated  poet  took  a  large  share  in  the  Revolution  of  1848, 
when  his  popularity  became  enormous.  His  political  talents,  however, 
apart  from  his  wonderful  eloquence,  were  less  than  mediocre,  and  he 
retired  into  private  life  within  three  years. 

His  "Meditations,"  "Jocelyn,"  " Recueillements,"  etc.,  etc.,  are  beau- 
tiful examples  of  lyrical  poetry,  and  may  be  considered  as  forming  part 
of  the  literature  of  the  world.     [Trans.] 


1844—1849  37 

as  colonel  of  the  regiment.  Enrolled  with  his  fellow  students, 
Pasteur  wrote  thus  to  his  parents  :  "  I  am  writing  from  the 
Orleans  Eailway,  where  as  a  garde  national'^  I  am  stationed. 
I  am  glad  that  I  was  in  Paris  during  the  February  days  ^  and 
that  I  am  here  still ;  I  should  be  sorry  to  leave  Paris  just  now. 
It  is  a  great  and  a  sublime  doctrine  which  is  now  being  un- 
folded before  our  eyes  .  .  .  and  if  it  were  necessary  I  should 
heartily  fight  for  the  holy  cause  of  the  Eepublic."  "  What  a 
transformation  of  our  whole  being !  ' '  has  written  one  who 
was  then  a  candidate  to  the  Bcole  Normale,  already  noted  by 
his  masters  for  his  good  sense,  Francisque  Sarcey.  "How 
those  magical  words  of  liberty  and  fraternity,  this  renewal  of 
the  Eepublic,  born  in  the  sunshine  of  our  twentieth  year,  filled 
our  hearts  with  unknown  and  absolutely  delicious  sensations  ! 
With  what  a  gallant  joy  we  embraced  the  sweet  and  superb 
image  of  a  people  of  free  men  and  brethren  !  The  whole  nation 
was  moved  as  we  were ;  like  us,  it  had  drunk  of  the  intoxicat- 
ing cup.  The  honey  of  eloquence  flowed  unceasingly  from  the 
lips  of  a  great  poet,  and  France  believed,  in  childlike  faith, 
that  his  word  was  efficacious  to  destroy  abuses,  cure  evils  and 
soothe  sorrows." 

One  day  when  Pasteur  was  crossing  the  Place  du  Pantheon, 
he  saw  a  gathering  crowd  around  a  wooden  erection,  decorated 
with  the  words  :  Autel  de  la  Patrie.  A  neighbour  told  him 
that  pecuniary  offerings  might  be  laid  upon  this  altar.  Pasteur 
goes  back  to  the  Ecole  Normale,  empties  a  drawer  of  all  his 
savings,  and  returns  to  deposit  it  in  thankful  hands. 

^  Garde  Nationale.  A  city  militia,  intended  to  preserve  order  and  to 
maintain  municipal  liberties ;  it  was  improvised  in  1789,  and  its  first 
Colonel  was  General  Lafayette,  of  American  Independence  fame.  Its 
cockade  united  the  King's  white  to  the  Paris  colours,  blue  and  red,  and 
thus  was  inaugurated  the  celebrated  Tricolour. 

The  National  Guard  was  preserved  by  the  Restoration,  but  Charles  X 
disbanded  it  as  being  dangerously  Liberal  in  its  tendencies.  It  re-formed 
itself  of  its  own  accord  in  1830,  and  helped  to  overthrow  the  elder 
branch  of  Bourbon.  It  proved  a  source  of  disorder  in  1848  and  was  re- 
organized under  the  second  Empire,  but,  having  played  an  active  and 
disastrous  part  in  the  Commune  (1871),  it  was  disarmed  and  finally 
suppressed.     [Trans.] 

^  February  days.  The  Republicans  had  organized  a  banquet  in  Paris 
for  February  22,  1848.  The  Government  prohibited  it,  with  the  result 
that  an  insurrection  took  place.  Barricades  were  erected  and  some 
fighting  ensued;  on  the  24th,  the  insurgents  were  masters  of  the  situa- 
tion. Louis  Philippe  abdicated  (vainly)  in  favour  of  his  grandson,  the 
Comte  de  Paris,  and  fle4  to  England.     [Trans.] 


38  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

"  You  say,"  wrote  his  father  on  April  28,  1848,  "  that  you 
have  offered  to  France  all  your  savings,  amounting  to  150 
francs.  Yoa  have  probably  kept  a  receipt  of  the  office  where 
this  payment  was  made ,  with  mention  of  the  date  and  place  ?  ' ' 
And  considering  that  this  action  should  be  made  known,  he 
advises  him  to  publish  it  in  the  journal  Le  National  or  La 
Re  forme  in  the  following  terms,  "  Gift  to  the  Patrie  :  150 
francs,  by  the  son  of  an  old  soldier  of  the  Empire,  Louis 
Pasteur  of  the  Ecole  Normale."  He  wrote  in  the  same  letter, 
"  You  should  raise  a  subscription  in  your  school  in  favour  of 
the  poor  Polish  exiles  who  have  done  so  much  for  us ;  it  would 
be  a  good  deed." 

After  those  days  of  national  exaltation,  Pasteur  returned  to 
his  crystals.  He  studied  tartrates  under  the  influence  of 
certain  ideas  that  he  himself  liked  to  expound.  Objects  con- 
sidered merely  from  the  point  of  view  of  form,  may  be  divided 
into  two  great  categories.  First,  those  objects  which,  placed 
before  a  mirror,  give  an  image  which  can  be  superposed  to 
them  :  these  have  a  symmetrical  plan  ;  secondly ,  those  which 
have  an  image  which  cannot  be  superposed  to  them  :  they  are 
dissymmetrical.  A  chair,  for  instance,  is  symmetrical,  or  a 
straight  flight  of  steps.  But  a  spiral  staircase  is  not  sym- 
metrical, its  own  image  cannot  be  laid  over  it.  If  it  turns  to 
the  right,  its  image  turns  to  the  left.  In  the  same  way  the 
right  hand  cannot  be  superposed  to  the  left  hand,  a  righthand 
glove  does  not  fit  a  left  hand,  and  a  right  hand  seen  in  a  mirror 
gives  the  image  of  a  left  hand. 

Pasteur  noticed  that  the  crystals  of  tartaric  acid  and  the 
tartrates  had  little  faces,  which  had  escaped  even  the  profound 
observation  of  Mitscherlich  and  La  Provostaye.  These  faces, 
which  only  existed  on  one  half  of  the  edges  or  similar  angles, 
constituted  what  is  called  a  hemihedral  form.  When  the 
crystal  was  placed  before  a  glass  the  image  that  appeared  could 
not  be  superposed  to  the  crystal ;  the  comparison  of  the  two 
hands  was  applicable  to  it.  Pasteur  thought  that  this  aspect 
of  the  crystal  might  be  an  index  of  what  existed  within  the 
molecules,  dissymmetry  of  form  corresponding  with  molecular 
dissymmetry.  Mitscherlich  had  not  perceived  that  his  tartrate 
presented  these  little  faces,  this  dissymmetry,  whilst  his  para- 
tartrate  was  without  them,  was  in  fact  not  hemihedral.  There- 
fore, reasoned  Pasteur,  the  deviation  to  the  right  of  the  plane 
of  polarization  produced  by  tartrate  and  the  optical  neutrality 


1844—1849  39 

of  paratartrates  would  be  explained  by  a  structural  law.  The 
first  part  of  these  conclusions  was  confirmed ;  all  the  crystals  of 
tartrate  proved  to  be  hemihedral.  But  when  Pasteur  came 
to  examine  the  crystals  of  paratartrate ,  hoping  to  find  none  of 
them  hemihedral,  he  experienced  a  keen  disappointment.  The 
paratartrate  also  was  hemihedral,  but  the  faces  of  some  of  the 
crystals  were  inclined  to  the  right,  and  those  of  others  to  the 
left.  It  then  occurred  to  Pasteur  to  take  up  these  crystals  one 
by  one  and  sort  them  carefully,  putting  on  one  side  those  which 
turned  to  the  left,  and  on  the  other  those  which  turned  to  the 
right.  He  thought  that  by  observing  their  respective  solutions 
in  the  polarizing  apparatus,  the  two  contrary  hemihedral  forms 
would  give  two  contrary  deviations ;  and  then ,  by  mixing  to- 
gether an  equal  number  of  each  kind,  as  no  doubt  Mitscherlich 
had  done,  the  resulting  solution  would  have  no  action  upon 
light,  the  two  equal  and  directly  opposite  deviations  exactly 
neutralizing  each  other. 

With  anxious  and  beating  heart  he  proceeded  to  this  experi- 
ment with  the  polarizing  apparatus  and  exclaimed ,  "  I  have 
it !  "  His  excitement  was  such  that  he  could  not  look  at  the 
apparatus  again ;  he  rushed  out  of  the  laboratory,  not  unlike 
Archimedes.  He  met  a  curator  in  the  passage,  embraced  him 
as  he  would  have  embraced  Chappuis,  and  dragged  him  out 
with  him  into  the  Luxembourg  garden  to  explain  his  discovery. 
Many  confidences  have  been  whispered  under  the  shade  of  the 
tall  trees  of  those  avenues,  but  never  was  there  greater  or  more 
exuberant  joy  on  a  young  man's  lips.  He  foresaw  all  the  con- 
sequences of  his  discovery.  The  hitherto  incomprehensible 
constitution  of  paratartaric  or  racemic  acid  was  explained ;  he 
differentiated  it  into  righthand  tartaric  acid,  similar  in  every 
way  to  the  natural  tartaric  acid  of  grapes ,  and  lef thand  tartaric 
acid.  These  two  distinct  acids  possess  equal  and  opposite  rota- 
tory powers  which  neutralize  each  other  when  these  two  sub- 
stances, reduced  to  an  aqueous  solution,  combine  spontaneously 
in  equal  quantities. 

"How  often,"  he  wrote  to  Chappuis  (May  5),  whom  he 
longed  to  have  with  him,  "  how  often  have  I  regretted  that  we 
did  not  both  take  up  the  same  study,  that  of  physical  science. 
We  who  so  often  talked  of  the  future,  we  did  not  understand. 
What  splendid  work  we  could  have  undertaken  and  would  be 
undertaking  now ;  and  what  could  we  not  have  done  united  by 
the  same  ideas,  the  same  love  of  science,  the  same  ambition  ! 


40  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

I  would  we  were  twenty  and  with  the  three  years  of  the  Ecole 
before  us!"  Always  fancying  that  he  could  have  done  more, 
he  often  had  such  retrospective  regrets.  He  was  impatient  to 
begin  new  researches,  when  a  sad  blow  fell  upon  him — his 
mother  died  almost  suddenly  of  apoplexy.  "  She  succumbed  in 
a  few  hours,"  he  wrote  to  Chappuis  on  May  28,  "  and  when  I 
reached  home  she  had  already  left  us.  I  have  asked  for  a 
holiday."  He  could  no  longer  work;  he  remained  steeped  in 
tears  and  buried  in  his  sorrow.  For  weeks  his  intellectual  life 
was  suspended. 

In  Paris,  in  the  scientific  world  perhaps  even  more  than 
in  any  other,  everything  gets  known,  repeated,  discussed. 
Pasteur's  researches  were  becoming  a  subject  of  conversation. 
Balard,  with  his  strident  voice,  spoke  of  them  in  the  library  at 
the  Institute,  which  is  a  sort  of  drawing-room  for  talkative  old 
Academicians.  J.  B.  Dumas  listened  gravely;  Biot,  old  Biot, 
then  seventy-four  years  old,  questioned  the  story  with  some 
scepticism.  "  Are  you  quite  sure?  "  he  would  ask,  his  head  a 
little  on  one  side,  his  words  slow  and  slightly  ironical.  He 
could  hardly  believe,  on  first  hearing  Balard,  that  a  new  doctor, 
fresh  from  the  Ecole  Normale,  should  have  overcome  a  difficulty 
which  had  proved  too  much  for  Mitscherlich.  He  did  not  care 
for  long  conversations  with  Balard,  and  as  the  latter  continued 
to  extol  Pasteur,  Biot  said,  "  I  should  like  to  investigate  that 
young  man's  results." 

Besides  Pasteur's  deference  for  all  those  whom  he  looked 
upon  as  his  teachers,  he  also  felt  a  sort  of  general  gratitude 
for  their  services  to  Science.  Partly  from  an  infinite  respect 
and  partly  from  an  ardent  desire  to  convince  the  old  scientist, 
he  wrote  on  his  return  to  Paris  to  Biot,  whom  he  did  not  know 
personally,  asking  him  for  an  interview.  Biot  answered  :  "  I 
shall  be  pleased  to  verify  your  results  if  you  will  communicate 
them  confidentially  to  me.  Please  believe  in  the  feelings  of 
interest  inspired  in  me  by  all  young  men  who  work  with 
accuracy  and  perseverance." 

An  appointment  was  made  at  the  College  de  France,*  where 
Biot  lived.     Every  detail  of  that  interview  remained  for  ever 

^  College  de  France.  An  establishment  of  superior  studies  founded 
in  Paris  by  Francis  I  in  1530,  and  where  public  lectures  are  given  on 
languages,  literature,  history,  mathematics,  physical  science,  etc.  It 
was  formerly  independent,  but  is  now  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Ministry  of  Public  Instruction.     [Trans.] 


1844—1849  41 

fixed  in  Pasteur's  memory.  Biot  began  by  fetching  some 
paratartaric  acid.  "  I  have  most  carefully  studied  it,"  he  said 
to  Pasteur ;  "  it  is  absolutely  neutral  in  the  presence  of  polarized 
light."  Some  distrust  was  visible  in  his  gestures  and  audible 
in  his  voice.  "I  shall  bring  you  everything  that  is  neces- 
sary," continued  the  old  man,  fetching  doses  of  soda  and 
ammonia.     He  wanted  the  salt  prepared  before  his  eyes. 

After  pouring  the  liquid  into  a  crystallizer,  Biot  took  it  into 
a  corner  of  his  room  to  be  quite  sure  that  no  one  would  touch  it. 
"  I  shall  let  you  know  when  you  are  to  come  back,"  he  said  to 
Pasteur  when  taking  leave  of  him.  Forty-eight  hours  later 
some  crystals ,  very  small  at  first ,  began  to  form ;  when  there 
was  a  sufficient  number  of  them,  Pasteur  was  recalled.  Still  in 
Biot's  presence,  Pasteur  withdrew,  one  by  one,  the  finest 
crystals  and  wiped  off  the  mother-liquor  adhering  to  them.  He 
then  pointed  out  to  Biot  the  opposition  of  their  hemihedral 
character,  and  divided  them  into  two  groups — left  and  right. 

"  So  you  affirm,"  said  Biot,  "  that  your  righthand  crystals 
will  deviate  to  the  right  the  plane  of  polarization,  and  your 
lefthand  ones  will  deviate  it  to  the  left  ?  ' ' 
"  Yes,"  said  Pasteur. 
"Well,  let  me  do  the  rest." 

Biot  himself  prepared  the  solutions,  and  then  sent  again  for 
Pasteur.  Biot  first  placed  in  the  apparatus  the  solution  which 
should  deviate  to  the  left.  Having  satisfied  himself  that  this 
deviation  actually  took  place,  he  took  Pasteur's  arm  and  said 
to  him  these  words,  often  deservedly  quoted  :  "  My  dear  boy,  I 
have  loved  Science  so  much  during  my  life,  that  this  touches 
my  very  heart." 

"It  was  indeed  evident,"  said  Pasteur  himself  in  recalling 
this  interview,  "  that  the  strongest  light  had  then  been  thrown 
on  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon  of  rotatory  polarization 
and  hemihedral  crystals ;  a  new  class  of  isomeric  substances 
was  discovered ;  the  unexpected  and  until  then  unexampled 
constitution  of  the  racemic  or  paratartaric  acid  was  revealed ; 
in  one  word  a  great  and  unforeseen  road  was  opened  to  science." 
Biot  now  constituted  himself  the  sponsor  in  scientific  matters 
of  his  new  young  friend,  and  undertook  to  report  upon  Pasteur's 
paper  entitled  :  "  Researches  on  the  relations  which  may  exist 
between  crystalline  form,  chemical  composition,  and  the 
direction  of  rotatory  power  " — destined  for  the  Academie  des 
Sciences. 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Biot  did  full  justice  to  Pasteur ;  he  even  rendered  him 
homage,  and — not  only  in  his  own  name  but  also  in  that  of  his 
three  colleagues,  Eegnault,  Balard,  and  Dumas — he  suggested 
that  the  Academic  should  declare  its  highest  approbation  of 
Pasteur's  treatise. 

Pasteur  did  not  conceive  greater  happiness  than  his  laboratory 
life,  and  yet  the  laboratories  of  that  time  were  very  unlike  what 
they  are  nowadays,  as  we  should  see  if  the  laboratories  of  the 
College  de  France,  of  the  Sorbonne,  of  the  Ecole  Normale  had 
been  preserved.  They  w^ere  all  that  Paris  could  offer  Europe, 
and  Europe  certainly  had  no  cause  to  covet  them.  Nowadays 
the  most  humble  college ,  in  the  smallest  provincial  town ,  would 
not  accept  such  dens  as  the  State  offered  (when  it  offered  them 
any)  to  the  greatest  French  scientists.  Claude  Bernard, 
Magendie's  curator,  worked  at  the  College  de  France  in  a  regu- 
lar cellar.  Wurtz  only  had  a  lumber-room  in  the  attics  of  the 
Dupuytren  Museum.  Henri  Sainte  Claire  Deville,  before  he  be- 
came head  of  the  Besangon  Faculty,  had  not  even  as  much  ;  he 
was  relegated  to  one  of  the  most  miserable  corners  of  the  Rue 
Lafarge.  J.  B.  Dumas  did  not  care  to  occupy  the  unhealthy 
room  reserved  for  him  at  the  Sorbonne;  his  father-in-law, 
Alexandre  Brongniart,  having  given  him  a  small  house  in  the 
Eue  Cuvier,  opposite  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  he  had  had  it 
transformed  into  a  laboratory  and  was  keeping  it  up  at  his  own 
expense.  He  was  therefore  comfortably  situated,  but  he  was 
exceptionally  fortunate.  Every  scientist  who  had  no  private 
means  to  draw  upon  had  to  choose  between  the  miserable 
cellars  and  equally  miserable  garrets  w^hich  were  all  that  the 
State  could  offer.  And  yet  it  was  more  tempting  than  a  Pro- 
fessor's chair  in  a  College  or  even  in  a  Faculty,  for  there  one 
could  not  give  oneself  up  entirely  to  one's  work. 

Nothing  would  have  seemed  more  natural  than  to  leave 
Pasteur  to  his  experiments.  But  his  appointment  to  some 
definite  post  could  no  longer  be  deferred,  in  spite  of  Balard 's 
tumultuous  activity.  The  end  of  the  summer  vacation  was 
near,  there  was  a  vacancy  :  Pasteur  was  made  a  Professsor  of 
Physics  at  the  Dijon  Lycee.  The  Minister  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion consented  to  allow  him  to  postpone  his  departure  until  the 
beginning  of  November,  in  order  to  let  him  finish  some  work 
begun  under  the  eye  of  Biot,  who  thought  and  dreamt  of 
nothing  but  these  new  investigations.  During  thirty  years 
Biot  had  studied  the  phenomena  of  rotatory  polarization.     He 


1844—1849  43 

had  called  the  attention  of  chemists  to  these  phenomena,  but 
his  call  had  been  unheeded.  Continuing  his  solitary  labour,  he 
had — in  experimenting  on  cases  both  simple  and  complex — 
studied  this  molecular  rotatory  power,  without  suspecting  that 
this  power  bore  a  definite  relation  to  the  hemihedral  form  of 
some  crystals.  And  now  that  the  old  man  was  a  witness  of  a 
triumphant  sequel  to  his  own  researcEes,  now  that  he  had  the 
joy  of  seeing  a  young  man  with  a  thoughtful  mind  and  an 
enthusiastic  heart  working  with  him,  now  that  the  hope  of  this 
daily  collaboration  shed  a  last  ray  on  the  close  of  his  life, 
Pasteur's  departure  for  Dijon  came  as  a  real  blow.  "If  at 
least,"  he  said,  "  they  were  sending  you  to  a  Faculty  !  "  He 
turned  his  wrath  on  to  the  Government  officials.  "  They  don't 
seem  to  realize  that  such  labours  stand  above  everything  else ! 
If  they  only  knew  it,  two  or  three  such  treatises  might  bring  a 
man  straight  to  the  Institut !  ' ' 

Nevertheless  Pasteur  had  to  go.  M.  Pouillet  gave  him  a 
letter  for  a  former  Polytechnician ,'  now  a  civil  engineer  at 
Dijon,  a  M.  Parandier,  in  which  he  wrote — 

"  M.  Pasteur  is  a  most  distinguished  young  chemist.  He 
has  just  completed  some  very  remarkable  work,  and  I  hope 
it  will  not  be  long  before  he  is  sent  to  a  first-class  Faculty.  I 
need  add  nothing  else  about  him ;  I  know  no  more  honest , 
industrious,  or  capable  young  man.  Help  him  as  much  as  you 
can  at  Dijon ;  you  will  not  regret  it." 

Those  first  weeks  away  from  his  masters  and  from  his  beloved 
pursuits  seemed  very  hard  to  Pasteur.  But  he  was  anxious  to 
prove  himself  a  good  teacher.  This  duty  appeared  to  him  to 
be  a  noble  ideal,  and  to  involve  a  wide  responsibility.  He  felt 
none  of  the  self  satisfaction  which  is  sometimes  a  source  of 
strength  to  some  minds  conscious  of  their  superiority  to  others. 
He  did  not  even  do  himself  the  justice  of  feeling  that  he  was 

1  Polytechnician.  A  student  of  the  Ecole  Poly  technique,  a  military 
and  engineering  school  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Minister  of  War, 
founded  in  1794.  Candidates  for  admission  must  be  older  than  sixteen 
and  younger  than  twenty,  but  the  limit  of  age  is  raised  to  twenty-five  in 
the  case  of  private  soldiers  and  non-commissioned  ofiicers.  They  must 
also  have  passed  their  haccalauriat  es  lettres  or  es  sciences — preferably 
the  latter.  After  two  years'  residence  (compulsory)  students  pass  » 
leaving  examination,  and  are  entered  according  to  their  list  number 
as  engineers  of  the  Navy,  Mines,  or  Civil  Works,  or  as  officers  in  the 
military  Engineers  or  in  the  Artillery;  the  two  last  then  have  to  go 
through  one  of  the  military  training  schools  (Ecoles  d' Application). 
[Trans.] 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

absolutely  sure  of  his  subject.  He  wrote  to  Chappuis  (Novem- 
ber 20,  1848)  :  "  I  find  that  preparing  my  lessons  takes  up  a 
great  deal  of  time.  It  is  only  when  I  have  prepared  a  lesson 
very  carefully  that  I  succeed  in  making  it  very  clear  and  capable 
of  compelling  attention.  If  I  neglect  it  at  all  I  lecture  badly 
and  become  unintelligible." 

He  had  both  first  and  second  year  pupils ;  these  two  classes 
took  up  all  his  time  and  all  his  strength.  He  liked  the  second 
class ;  it  was  not  a  very  large  one.  "  They  all  work,"  Pasteur 
wrote,  "some  very  intelligently."  As  to  the  first  year  class, 
what  could  he  do  with  eighty  pupils  ?  The  good  ones  were  kept 
back  by  the  bad.  "  Don't  you  think,"  he  wrote,  "  that  it  is  a 
mistake  not  to  limit  classes  to  fifty  boys  at  the  most?  It  is 
with  great  difficulty  that  I  can  secure  the  attention  of  all 
towards  the  end  of  the  lesson.  I  have  only  found  one  means, 
which  is  to  multiply  experiments  at  the  last  moment." 

Whilst  he  was  eagerly  and  conscientiously  giving  himself  up 
to  his  new  functions — not  without  some  bitterness,  for  he  really 
was  entitled  to  an  appointment  in  a  Faculty,  and  he  could  not 
pursue  his  favourite  studies — his  masters  were  agitating  on  his 
behalf.  Balard  was  clamouring  to  have  him  as  an  assistant  at 
the  Ecole  Normale.  Biot  was  appealing  to  Baron  Thenard. 
This  scientist  was  then  Chairman  of  the  Grand  Council  of  the 
Universite.^  He  had  been  a  pupil  of  Vauquelin,  a  friend  of 
Laplace,  and  a  collaborator  of  Gay-Lussac ;  he  had  lectured 
during  thirty  years  at  the  Sorbonne ,  at  the  College  de  France , 
and  at  the  Ecole  Polytechnique  ;  he  could  truthfully  boast  that 
he  had  had  40,000  pupils.  He  was,  like  J.  B.  Dumas,  a  born 
professor.  But,  whilst  Dumas  was  always  self  possessed  and 
dignified  in  his  demeanour,  his  very  smile  serious,  Thenard, 
a  native  of  Burgundy,  threw  his  whole  personality  into  his  work, 
a  broad  smile  on  his  beaming  face. 

He  was  now  (1848)  seventy  years  old,  and  the  memory  of  his 

1  Universite.  The  celebrated  body  known  as  Universite  de  Paris,  and 
instituted  by  Philippe  Auguste  in  1200,  possessed  great  privileges  from 
its  earliest  times.  It  had  the  monopoly  of  teaching  and  a  jurisdiction 
of  its  own.  It  took  a  share  in  public  affairs  on  several  occasions,  and 
had  long  struggles  to  maintain  against  several  religious  orders.  The 
Universite  was  suppressed  by  the  Convention,  but  re-organized  by 
Napoleon  I  in  1808.  It  is  now  subdivided  into  sixteen  Academies 
Universitaires,  each  of  which  is  administered  by  a  Rector.  The  title  of 
Grand  Master  of  the  Universite  always  accompanies  that  of  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction.     [Trans.] 


1844—1849  45 

teaching,  the  services  rendered  to  industry  by  his  discoveries, 
the  eclat  of  his  name  and  titles  contrasted  with  his  humble 
origin,  all  combined  to  render  him  more  than  a  Chancellor  of 
the  University ;  he  was  in  fact  a  sort  of  Field  Marshal  of 
science,  and  all  powerful.  Three  years  previously  he  had  much 
scandalized  certain  red-tape  officials  by  choosing  three  very 
young  men — Puiseux,  Delesse,  and  H.  Sainte  Claire  Deville — 
as  professors  for  the  new  Faculty  of  Science  at  Besangon.  He 
had  accentuated  this  authoritative  measure  by  making  Sante 
Claire  Deville  Dean  of  the  Faculty.  In  the  unknown  professor 
of  twenty-six,  he  had  divined  the  future  celebrated  scientist. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1848  Pasteur  solicited  the  place  of 
assistant  to  M.  Delesse,  who  was  taking  a  long  leave  of  absence. 
This  would  have  brought  him  near  Arbois,  besides  placing 
him  in  a  Faculty.  He  asked  for  nothing  more.  Thenard,  who 
had  Biot's  report  in  his  hands,  undertook  to  transmit  to  the 
Minister  this  modest  and  natural  request.  He  was  opposed 
by  an  unexpected  argument — the  presentation  of  assistantships 
belonged  to  each  Faculty.  This  custom  was  unknown  to 
Pasteur.  Thenard  was  unable  to  overcome  this  routine 
formality.  Pasteur  thought  that  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
Thenard,  Biot,  and  Pouillet  ought  to  have  prevailed.  "  I  can 
practically  do  nothing  here,"  he  wrote  on  the  sixth  of 
December,  thinking  of  his  interrupted  studies.  "  If  I  cannot 
go  to  Besangon,  I  shall  go  back  to  Paris  as  a  curator." 

His  father,  to  whom  he  paid  a  visit  for  the  new  year,  per- 
suaded him  to  look  upon  things  more  calmly,  telling  him  that 
wisdom  repudiated  too  much  hurry.  Louis  deferred  to  his 
father's  opinion  to  the  extent  of  writing,  on  January  2,  1849, 
to  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  begging  him  to  overlook 
his  request.  However,  the  members  of  the  Institute  who  had 
taken  up  his  cause  did  not  intend  to  be  thwarted  by  minor 
difficulties.  Pasteur's  letter  was  hardly  posted  when  he 
received  an  assistantship,  not  at  the  Besan9on  Faculty  but  at 
Strasburg,  to  take  the  place  of  M.  Persoz,  Professor  of 
Chemistry,  who  was  desirous  of  going  to  Paris. 

Pasteur,  on  his  arrival  at  Strasburg  (January  15)  was 
welcomed  by  the  Professor  of  Physics,  his  old  school  friend, 
the  Franc-Comtois  Bertin,  "First  of  all,  you  are  coming  to 
live  with  me,"  said  Bertin  gleefully.  "You  could  not  do 
better;  it  is  a  stone's  throw  from  the  Faculte."  By  living 
with  Bertin,  Pasteur  acquired  a  companion  endowed  with  a 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

rare  combination  of  qualities — a  quick  wit  and  an  affectionate 
heart.  Bertin  was  too  shrewd  to  be  duped,  and  a  maUcious 
twinkle  often  lit  up  his  kindly  expression ;  with  one  apparently 
careless  word,  he  would  hit  the  weak  point  of  the  most  self 
satisfied.  He  loved  those  who  were  simple  and  true,  hence  his 
affection  for  Pasteur.  His  smiling  philosophy  contrasted  with 
Pasteur's  robust  faith  and  ardent  impetuosity.  Pasteur 
admired,  but  did  not  often  imitate,  the  peaceful  manner  with 
which  Bertin,  affirming  that  a  disappointment  often  proved  to 
be  a  blessing  in  disguise,  accepted  things  as  they  came.  In 
order  to  prove  that  this  was  no  paradox,  Bertin  used  to  tell 
what  had  happened  to  him  in  1839 ,  when  he  was  mathematical 
preparation  master  at  the  College  of  Luxeuil.  He  was  entitled 
to  200  francs  a  month,  but  payment  was  refused  him.  This 
injustice  did  not  cause  him  to  recriminate,  but  he  quietly 
tendered  his  resignation.  He  went  in  for  the  Ecole  Normale 
examination,  entered  the  school  at  the  head  of  the  list,  and 
subsequently  became  Professor  of  Physics  at  the  Strasburg 
Faculty.  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  my  former  disappointment, 
I  should  still  be  at  Luxeuil."  He  was  now  perfectly  satisfied, 
thinking  that  nothing  could  be  better  than  to  be  a  Professor  in 
a  Faculty ;  but  this  absence  of  any  sort  of  ambition  did  not 
prevent  him  from  giving  his  teaching  the  most  scrupulous 
attention.  He  prepared  his  lessons  with  extreme  care,  en- 
deavouring to  render  them  absolutely  clear.  He  took  great 
personal  interest  in  his  pupils,  and  often  helped  them  with  his 
advice  in  the  interval  between  class  hours.  This  excellent 
man's  whole  life  was  spent  in  working  for  others,  and  to  be 
useful  was  ever  to  him  the  greatest  satisfaction. 

Perhaps  Pasteur  was  stimulated  by  Bertin's  example  to  give 
excessive  importance  to  minor  matters  in  his  first  lessons.  He 
writes  :  "  I  gave  too  much  thought  to  the  style  of  my  two  first 
lectures,  and  they  were  anything  but  good;  but  I  think  the 
subsequent  ones  were  more  satisfactory,  and  I  feel  I  am  im- 
proving." His  lectures  were  well  attended,  for  the  numerous 
industries  of  Alsace  gave  to  chemistry  quite  a  place  by  itself. 

Everything  pleased  him  in  Strasburg  save  its  distance  from 
Arbois.  He  who  could  concentrate  his  thoughts  for  weeks,  for 
months  even,  on  one  subject,  who  could  become  as  it  were  a 
prisoner  of  his  studies,  had  withal  an  imperious  longing  for 
family  life.     His  rooms  in  Bertin's  house  suited  him  all  the 


1844—1849  47 

better  that  they  were  large  enough  for  him  to  entertain  one  of 
his  relations.  His  father  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  :  "  You 
say  that  you  will  not  marry  for  a  long  time,  that  you  will  ask 
one  of  your  sisters  to  live  with  you.  I  could  wish  it  for  you 
and  for  them,  for  neither  of  them  wishes  for  a  greater  happi- 
ness. Both  desire  nothing  better  than  to  look  after  your 
comfort ;  you  are  absolutely  everything  to  them.  One  may 
meet  with  sisters  as  good  as  they  are,  but  certainly  with  none 
better." 

Louis  Pasteur's  circle  of  dear  ones  was  presently  enlarged 
by  his  intimacy  with  another  family.  The  new  Eector  of  the 
Academy  of  Strasburg,  M.  Laurent,  had  arrived  in  October. 
He  was  no  relation  to  the  chemist  of  the  same  name,  and  the 
place  he  was  about  to  take  in  Pasteur's  life  was  much  greater 
than  that  held  by  Auguste  Laurent  at  the  time  when  they  were 
working  together  in  Balard's  laboratory. 

After  having  begun,  in  1812,  as  preparation  master  in  the 
then  Imperial  College  of  Louis  le  Grand,  M,  Laurent  had 
become,  in  1826,  head  master  of  the  College  of  Eiom.  He 
found  at  Eiom  more  tutors  than  pupils ;  there  were  only  three 
boys  in  the  school !  Thanks  to  M.  Laurent,  those  three  soon 
became  one  hundred  and  thirty-four.  From  Eiom  he  was  sent 
to  Gueret,  then  to  Saintes,  to  save  a  college  in  imminent 
danger  of  disappearing ;  there  were  struggles  between  the 
former  head  master  and  the  Mayor,  the  town  refused  the 
subsidies,  all  was  confusion.  Peace  immediately  followed  his 
arrival.  "  Those  who  have  known  him,"  wrote  M.  Pierron 
in  the  Revue  de  V Instruction  Puhlique,  "  will  not  be  surprised 
at  such  miracles  coming  from  a  man*  so  intelligent  and  so 
active,  so  clever,  amiable,  and  warm-hearted."  Wherever  he 
was  afterwards  sent,  at  Orleans,  Angouleme,  Douai,  Toulouse, 
Cahors,  he  worked  the  same  charm,  born  of  kindness.  At 
Strasburg,  he  had  made  of  the  Academic  a  home  where  all  the 
Faculty  found  a  simple  and  cordial  welcome.  Madame 
Laurent  was  a  modest  woman  who  tried  to  efface  herself,  but 
whose  exquisite  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  could  not  remain 
hidden.  The  eldest  of  her  daughters  was  married  to  M. 
Zevort,  whose  name  became  doubly  dear  to  the  Universite. 
The  two  younger  ones,  brought  up  in  habits  of  industry  and 
unselfishness  which  seemed  natural  to  them,  brightened  the 
home  by  their  youthful  gaiety. 


48  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

When  Pasteur  on  his  arrival  called  on  this  family,  he  had 
the  feeling  that  happiness  lay  there.  He  had  seen  at  Arbois 
how,  through  the  daily  difficulties  of  manual  labour,  his  parents 
looked  at  life  from  an  exalted  point  of  view,  appreciating  it 
from  that  standard  of  moral  perfection  which  gives  dignity 
and  grandeur  to  the  humblest  existence.  In  this  family — of 
a  higher  social  position  than  his  own — he  again  found  the  same 
high  ideal,  and,  with  great  superiority  of  education,  the  same 
simple-mindedness.  When  Pasteur  entered  for  the  first  time 
the  Laurent  family  circle,  he  immediately  felt  the  delightful 
impression  of  being  in  a  thoroughly  congenial  atmosphere ;  a 
communion  of  thoughts  and  feelings  seemed  established  after 
the  first  words,  the  first  looks  exchanged  between  him  and 
his  hosts. 

In  the  evening,  at  the  restaurant  where  most  of  the  younger 
professors  dined,  he  heard  others  speak  of  the  kindliness  and 
strict  justice  of  the  Kector ;  and  everyone  expressed  respect 
for  his  wonderfully  united  family. 

At  one  of  M.  Laurent's  quiet  evening  "  at  homes,"  Bertin 
was  saying  of  Pasteur,  "  You  do  not  often  meet  with  such  a 
hard  worker ;  no  attraction  ever  can  take  him  away  from  his 
work."  The  attraction  now  came,  however,  and  it  was  such 
a  powerful  one  that,  on  February  10,  only  a  fortnight  after  his 
arrival,  Pasteur  addressed  to  M.  Laurent  the  following  official 
letter  : — 

"  Sir,— 

"  An  offer  of  the  greatest  importance  to  me  and  to  your 
family  is  about  to  be  made  to  you  on  my  behalf ;  and  I  feel  it 
my  duty  to  put  you  in  possession  of  the  foHowing  facts,  which 
may  have  some  weight  in  determining  your  acceptance  or 
refusal. 

' '  My  father  is  a  tanner  in  the  small  town  of  Arbois  in  the 
Jura,  my  sisters  keep  house  for  him,  and  assist  him  with  his 
books,  taking  the  place  of  my  mother  whom  we  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  lose  in  May  last. 

"My  family  is  in  easy  circumstances,  but  with  no 
fortune ;  I  do  not  value  what  we  possess  at  more  than  50 ,000 
francs,  and,  as  for  me,  I  have  long  ago  decided  to  hand 
over  to  my  sisters  the  whole  of  what  should  be  my  share. 
I   have   therefore    absolutely    no    fortune.     My    only    means 


1844—1849  49 

are    good    health,    some    courage,    and    my    position    in    the 
Universite. 

"  I  left  the  Ecole  Normale  two  years  ago,  an  agrege  in 
physical  science.  I  have  held  a  Doctor's  degree  eighteen 
months,  and  I  have  presented  to  the  Academie  a  few  works 
which  have  been  very  well  received,  especially  the  last  one, 
upon  which  a  report  was  made  which  I  now  have  the  honour 
to  enclose. 

"This,  Sir,  is  all  my  present  position.  As  to  the  future, 
unless  my  tastes  should  completely  change,  I  shall  give  myself 
up  entii'ely  to  chemical  research.  I  hope  to  return  to  Paris 
when  I  have  acquired  some  reputation  through  my  scientific 
labours.  M.  Biot  has  often  told  me  to  think  seriously  about 
the  Institute ;  perhaps  I  may  do  so  in  ten  or  fifteen  years'  time, 
and  after  assiduous  work ;  but  this  is  but  a  dream,  and  not  the 
motive  which  makes  me  love  Science  for  Science's  sake. 

My  father  will  himself  come  to  Strasburg  to  make  this 
proposal  of  marriage. 

"  Accept,  Sir,  the  assurance  of  my  profound  respect,  etc. 

"  P.S. — I  was  twenty-six  on  December  27." 

A  definite  answer  was  adjourned  for  a  few  weeks,  Pasteur, 
in  a  letter  to  Madame  Laurent,  wrote,  "  I  am  afraid  that  Mile. 
Marie  may  be  influenced  by  early  impressions,  unfavourable  to 
me.  There  is  nothing  in  me  to  attract  a  young  giii's  fancy. 
But  my  recollections  tell  me  that  those  who  have  known  me 
very  well  have  loved  me  very  much." 

Of  these  letters,  religiously  preserved,  fragments  like  the 
following  have  also  been  obtained.  "  All  that  I  beg  of  you. 
Mademoiselle  (he  had  now  been  authorised  to  address  himself 
directly  to  her)  is  that  you  will  not  judge  me  too  hastily,  and 
therefore  misjudge  me.  Time  will  show  you  that  below  my 
cold,  shy  and  unpleasing  exterior,  there  is  a  heart  full  of 
affection  for  you!  "  In  another  letter,  evidently  remorseful 
at  forsaking  the  laboratory,  he  says,  "I,  who  did  so  love  my 
crystals  !  ' ' 

He  loved  them  still,  as  is  proved  by  an  answer  from  Biot  to 
a  proposal  of  Pasteur's.  In  order  to  spare  the  old  man's 
failing  sight,  Pasteur  had  the  ingenious  idea  of  cutting  out  of 
pieces  of  cork,  with  exquisite  skill,  some  models  of  crystalline 
types  greatly  enlarged.     He  had  tinted  the  edges  and  faces, 

E 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

and  nothing  was  easier  than  to  recognize  their  hemihedral 
character.  "  I  accept  with  great  pleasure,"  wrote  Biot  on 
April  7,  "the  offer  you  make  me  of  sending  me  a  small 
quantity  of  your  two  acids,  with  models  of  their  crystalline 
types."  He  meant  the  righthand  tartaric  acid  and  the  left- 
hand  tartaric  acid,  which  Pasteur — not  to  pronounce  too  hastily 
on  their  identity  with  ordinary  tartaric  acid — then  called 
dextroracemic  and  IcBVOracemic. 

Pasteur  wished  to  go  further ;  he  was  now  beginning  to 
study  the  crystallizations  of  formate  of  strontian.  Comparing 
them  with  those  of  the  paratartrates  of  soda  and  ammonia, 
surprised  and  uneasy  at  the  differences  he  observed,  he  once 
exclaimed ,  "  Ah  !  formate  of  strontian ,  if  only  I  had  got  you  !  ' ' 
to  the  immense  amusement  of  Bertin,  who  long  afterwards 
used  to  repeat  this  invocation  with  mock  enthusiasm. 

Pasteur  was  about  to  send  these  crystals  to  Biot,  but  the 
latter  wrote,  "Keep  them  until  you  have  thoroughly  investi- 
gated them.  .  .  .  You  can  depend  on  my  wish  to  serve  you  in 
every  circumstance  when  my  assistance  can  be  of  any  use  to 
you,  and  also  on  the  great  interest  with  which  you  have 
inspired  me." 

Eegnault  and  Senarmont  had  been  invited  by  Biot  to 
examine  the  valuable  samples  received  from  Strasburg,  the 
dextroracemic  and  lasvoracemic  acids.  Biot  wrote  to  Pasteur, 
"  We  might  make  up  our  minds  to  sacrifice  a  small  portion  of 
the  two  acids  in  order  to  reconstitute  the  racemic,  but  we  doubt 
whether  we  should  be  capable  of  discerning  it  with  certainty  by 
those  crystals  when  they  are  formed.  You  must  show  it  us 
yourself,  when  you  come  to  Paris  for  the  holidays.  Whilst 
arranging  my  chemical  treasures,  I  came  upon  a  small  quantity 
of  racemic  acid  which  I  thought  I  had  lost.  It  would  be 
sufficient  for  the  microscopical  experiments  that  I  might 
eventually  have  to  make.  So  if  the  small  phial  of  it  that  you 
saw  here  would  be  useful  to  you,  let  me  know,  and  I  will 
willingly  send  it.  In  this,  as  in  everything  else,  you  will 
always  find  me  most  anxious  to  second  you  in  your  labours." 

This  period  was  all  happiness.  Pasteur's  father  and  his 
sister  Josephine  came  to  Strasburg.  The  proposal  of  marriage 
was  accepted,  the  father  returned  to  Arbois,  Josephine  stay- 
ing behind.  She  remained  to  keep  house  and  to  share  the 
everyday  life  of  her  brother,  whom  she  loved  with  a  mixture  of 


1844—1849  51 

pride,  tenderness  and  solicitude.  In  her  devoted  sisterly 
generosity,  she  resigned  herself  to  the  thought  that  her  happy 
dream  must  be  of  short  duration.  The  wedding  was  fixed  for 
May  29. 

"I  believe,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  Chappuis,  "that  I  shall  be 
very  happy.  Every  quality  I  could  wish  for  in  a  wife  I  find 
in  her.  You  will  say,  '  He  is  in  love! '  Yes,  but  I  do  not 
think  I  exaggerate  at  all,  and  my  sister  Josephine  quite  agrees 
with  me." 


E  2 


CHAPTER  III 

1850—1854 

From  the  very  beginning  Mme.  Pasteur  not  only  admitted, 
but  approved,  that  the  laboratory  should  come  before  every- 
thing else.  She  would  willingly  have  adopted  the  typographic 
custom  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences  Reports,  where  the  word 
Science  is  always  spelt  with  a  capital  S.  It  was  indeed 
impossible  to  live  with  her  husband  without  sharing  his  joys, 
anxieties  and  renewed  hopes,  as  they  appeared  day  by  day 
reflected  in  his  admirable  eyes — eyes  of  a  rare  grey-green  colour 
like  the  sparkle  of  a  Ceylon  gem.  Before  certain  scientific 
possibilities,  the  flame  of  enthusiasm  shone  in  those  deep  eyes, 
and  the  whole  stern  face  was  illumined.  Between  domestic 
happiness  and  prospective  researches,  Pasteur's  life  was  com- 
plete. But  this  couple,  who  had  now  shared  everything  for 
more  than  a  year,  was  to  suffer  indirectly  through  the  new 
law  on  the  liberty  of  teaching. 

Devised  by  some  as  an  effort  at  compromise  between  the 
Church  and  the  University,  considered  by  others  as  a  scope  for 
competition  against  State  education,  the  law  of  1850  brought 
into  the  Superior  Council  of  Pablic  Instruction  four  archbishofjs 
or  bishops,  elected  by  their  colleagues.  In  each  Department^ 
an  Academy  Council  was  instituted,  and,  in  this  parcelling 
out  of  University  jurisdiction,  the  right  of  presence  was  recog- 
nized as  belonging  to  the  bishop  or  his  delegate.  But  all  these 
advantages  did  not  satisfy  those  who  called  themselves 
Catholics  before  everything  else.  The  rupture  between  Louis 
Veuillot  on  one  side  and,  on  the  other,  Falloux  and  Montalem- 
bert,  the  principal  authors  of  this  law,  dates  from  that  time. 

*  Dipartements.  The  present  divisions  of  French  territory,  number- 
ing eighty-seven  in  all.  Each  department  is  administered  by  a  prefet, 
and  subdivided  into  arrondissements,  each  of  which  has  a  sous-prefet. 

[Trans.] 


1850—1854  53 

"What  we  understood  by  the  Hberty  of  teaching,"  wrote 
Louis  Veuillot,  "  was  not  a  share  given  to  the  Church,  but  the 
destruction  of  monopoly.  .  .  .  No  alhance  with  the  University  ! 
Away  with  its  books,  inspectors,  examinations,  certificates, 
diplomas  !  All  that  means  the  hand  of  the  State  laid  on  the 
liberty  of  the  citizen ;  it  is  the  breath  of  incredulity  on  the 
younger  generation."  Confronted  by  the  violent  rejection  of 
any  attempt  at  reconciliation  and  threatened  interference  with 
the  University  on  the  part  of  the  Church,  the  Government  was 
trying  to  secure  to  itself  the  whole  teaching  fraternity. 

The  primary  schoolmasters  groaned  under  the  heavy  yoke 
of  the  prefects.  "These  deep  politicians  only  know  how  to 
dismiss.  .  .  .  The  rectors  will  become  the  valets  of  the  pre- 
fects ..."  wrote  Pasteur  with  anger  and  distress  in  a  letter 
dated  July,  1850.  After  the  primary  schools,  the  attacks  now 
reached  the  colleges.  The  University  was  accused  of  attend- 
ing exclusively  to  Latin  verse  and  Greek  translations,  and  of 
neglecting  the  souls  of  the  students.  Eomieu,  who  ironically 
dubbed  the  University  "  Alma  Parens,"  and  attacked  it  most 
bitterly,  seemed  hardly  fitted  for  the  part  of  justiciary.  He 
was  a  former  pupil  of  the  Ecole  Poly  technique,  who  wrote 
vaudevilles  until  he  was  made  a  prefect  by  Louis  Philippe. 
He  was  celebrated  for  various  tricks  which  amused  Paris  and 
disconcerted  the  Government,  much  to  the  joy  of  the  Prince  de 
Joinville,^  who  loved  such  mystifications.  After  the  fall  of 
Louis  Philippe,  Eomieu  became  a  totally  different  personality. 
He  had  been  supposed  to  take  nothing  seriously ;  he  now  put  a 
tragic  construction  on  everything.  He  became  a  prophet  of 
woe ,  declaring  that  ' '  gangrene  was  devouring  the  souls  of 
eight  year  old  children."  According  to  him,  faith,  respect,  all 
was  being  destroyed ;  he  anathematized  Instruction  without 
Education,  and  stigmatized  village  schoolmasters  as  "obscure 
apostles"  charged  with  "preaching  the  doctrines  of  revolt." 
This  violence  was  partly  oratory ,  but  oratory  does  not  minimizes 
violence,  it  excites  it.  Every  pamphleteer  ends  by  being  a 
bond-slave  to  his  own  phraseology. 

When  Eomieu  appeared  in  Strasburg  as  an  Envoy  Extra- 
ordinary entrusted  by  the  Government  with  a  general  inquiry, 
he  found  that  M.  Laurent  did  not  answer  to  that  ideal  of  a 

^  Prince  de  Joinville.  Third  son  of  Louis  Philippe,  and  an  Admiral 
in  the  French  navy.  It  was  he  who  was  sent  to  fetch  Napoleon's  remaips 
from  St.  Helena.     [Trans.] 


54.  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

functionary  which  was  entertained  by  a  certain  party.  M. 
Laurent  had  the  very  highest  respect  for  justice ;  he  distrusted 
the  upstarts  whose  virtues  were  very  much  on  the  surface  ;  he 
never  decided  on  the  fate  of  an  inferior  without  the  most  pains- 
taking inquiry ;  he  did  not  look  on  an  accidental  mistake  as 
an  unpardonable  fault ;  he  refused  to  take  any  immediate  and 
violent  measures  :  all  this  caused  him  to  be  looked  upon  with 
suspicion.  "  The  influence  of  the  Rector  "  (thus  ran  Romieu's 
official  report)  "  is  hardly,  if  at  all,  noticeable.  He  should  be 
replaced  by  a  safe  man." 

The  Minister  of  Pubhc  Instruction,  M.  de  Parieu,  had  to 
bow  before  the  formal  wish  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
founded  upon  peremptory  arguments  of  this  kind.  M. 
Laurent  was  offered  the  post  of  Rector  at  Chateauroux,  a 
decided  step  downward.  He  refused,  left  Strasburg,  and,  with 
no  complaint  or  recriminations,  retired  into  private  life  at  the 
age  of  fifty-five. 

It  was  when  this  happy  family  circle  was  just  about  to  be 
enlarged  that  its  quiet  was  thus  broken  into  by  this  untoward 
result  of  political  agitation.  M.  Laurent's  youngest  daughter 
soon  after  became  engaged  to  M.  Loir,  a  professor  at  the 
Strasburg  Pharmaceutical  School,  who  had  been  a  student  at 
the  Ecole  Normale,  and  who  ultimately  became  Dean  of  the 
Faculty  of  Sciences  at  Lyons.  He  was  then  preparing,  assisted 
by  Pasteur,  his  "  thesis  "  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Science 
In  this  he  announced  some  new  results  based  on  the  simul- 
taneous existence  of  hemihedral  crystalline  forms  and  the 
rotatory  power.  He  wrote,  "  I  am  happy  to  have  brought 
new  facts  to  bear  upon  the  law  that  M.  Pasteur  has 
enunciated." 

' '  Why  are  you  not  a  professor  of  physics  or  chemistry !  ' ' 
wrote  Pasteur  to  Chappuis  ;  "  we  should  work  together ,  and  in 
ten  years'  time  we  would  revolutionize  chemistry.  There  are 
wonders  hidden  in  crystallization,  and,  through  it,  the  inmost 
construction  of  substances  will  one  day  be  revealed.  If  you 
come  to  Strasburg,  you  shall  become  a  chemist ;  I  shall  talk  to 
you  of  nothing  but  crystals." 

The  vacation  was  always  impatiently  awaited  by  Pasteur. 
He  was  able  to  work  more,  and  to  edit  the  result  of  his 
researches  in  an  extract  for  the  Academic  des  Sciences.  On 
October  2  his  friend  received  the  following  letter  :  "  On 
Monday  I  presented  this    year's   work    to    the    '  Institut.'     I 


1850—1854  55 

read  a  long  extract  from  it,  and  then  gave  a  viva  voce  demon- 
stration relative  to  some  crystallographic  details.  This 
demonstration,  which  I  had  been  specially  desired  to  give,  v^as 
quite  against  the  prevailing  customs  of  the  Academic.  I  gave 
it  with  my  usual  delight  in  that  sort  of  thing,  and  it  was 
followed  with  great  attention.  Fortunately  for  me,  the  most 
influential  members  of  the  Academic  were  present.  M.  Dumas 
sat  almost  facing  me.  I  looked  at  him  several  times,  and  he 
expressed  by  an  approving  nod  of  his  head  that  he  understood 
and  was  much  interested.  He  asked  me  to  his  house  the  next 
day,  and  congratulated  me.  He  said,  amongst  other  things, 
that  I  was  a  proof  that  when  a  Frenchman  took  up  crystal- 
lography he  knew  what  he  was  about,  and  also  that  if  I 
persevered,  as  he  felt  sure  I  should,  I  should  become  the 
founder  of  a  school. 

"  M.  Biot,  whose  kindness  to  me  is  beyond  all  expression, 
came  to  me  after  my  lecture  and  said,  '  It  is  as  good  as  it  can 
possibly  be.'  On  October  14  he  will  give  his  report  on  my 
work ;  he  declares  I  have  discovered  a  very  California.  Do 
not. suppose  I  have  done  anything  wonderful  this  year.  This 
is  but  a  satisfactory  consequence  of  preceding  work." 

In  his  report  (postponed  until  October  28)  Biot  was  more 
enthusiastic.  He  praised  the  numerous  and  unforeseen  results 
brought  out  by  Pasteur  within  the  last  two  years.  "He 
throws  light  upon  everything  he  touches,"  he  said. 

To  be  praised  by  Biot  was  a  rare  favour ;  his  diatribes  were 
better  known.  In  a  secret  committee  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences  (January,  1851)  the  Academic  had  to  pronounce  on 
the  merits  of  two  candidates  for  a  professorship  at  the  College 
de  France  :  Balard,  a  professor  of  the  Faculty  of  Science,  chief 
lecturer  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  and  Laurent  the  chemist,  who 
in  order  to  live  had  been  compelled  to  accept  a  situation  as 
assay er  at  the  Mint.  Biot,  with  his  halting  step,  arrived  at 
the  Committee  room  and  spoke  thus  :  ' '  The  title  of  Member 
of  the  Institute  is  the  highest  reward  and  the  greatest  honour 
that  a  French  scientist  can  receive,  but  it  does  not  constitute 
a  privilege  of  inactivity  that  need  only  be  claimed  in  order  to 
obtain  everything.  .  .  .  For  several  years,  M.  Balard  has  been 
in  possession  of  two  large  laboratories  where  he  might  have 
executed  any  work  dictated  to  him  by  his  zeal ,  whilst  nearly  all 
M.  Laurent's  results  have  been  effected  by  his  unaided  personal 
efforts  at  the  cost  of  heavy  sacrifices.     If  you  give  the  college 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

vacancy  to  M.  Balard,  you  will  add  nothing  to  the  opportunities 
for  study  which  he  already  has ;  but  it  will  take  away  from  M. 
Laurent  the  means  of  work  that  he  lacks  and  that  we  have 
now  the  opportunity  of  providing  for  him.  The  chemical 
section,  and  indeed  the  whole  Academy  will  easily  judge  on 
which  side  are  scientific  justice  and  the  interests  of  future 
progress." 

Biot  had  this  little  speech  printed  and  sent  a  copy  of  it  to 
Pasteur.  The  incident  led  to  a  warm  dispute,  and  Biot  lost 
his  cause.  Pasteur  wrote  to  Chappuis,  "  M.  Biot  has  done 
everything  that  was  possible  to  do  in  order  that  M.  Laurent 
should  win,  and  the  final  result  is  a  great  grief  to  him.  But 
really,"  the  younger  man  added,  more  indulgent  than  the  old 
man,  and  divided  between  his  wishes  for  Laurent  and  the  fear 
of  the  sorrow  Balard  would  have  felt,  "  M.  Balard  would  not 
have  deserved  so  much  misfortune.  Think  of  the  disgrace  it 
would  have  been  to  him  if  there  had  been  a  second  vote  favour- 
able to  Laurent,  especially  coming  from  the  Institute  of  which 
he  is  a  member."  At  the  end  of  that  campaign,  Biot  in  a  fit 
of  misanthropy  which  excepted  Pasteur  alone,  and  knowing 
that  Pasteur  had  spoken  with  effusion  of  their  mutual  feelings, 
wrote  to  him  as  follows  :  "  I  am  touched  by  your  acknowledg- 
ment of  my  deep  and  sincere  affection  for  you,  and  I  thank  you 
for  it.  But  whilst  keeping  your  attachment  for  me  as  I 
preserve  mine  for  you,  let  me  for  the  future  rejoice  in  it  in  the 
secret  recesses  of  my  heart  and  of  yours.  The  world  is  jealous 
of  friendships  however  disinterested,  and  my  affection  for  you 
is  such  that  I  wish  people  to  feel  that  they  honour  themselves 
by  appreciating  you,  rather  than  that  they  should  know  that 
you  love  me  and  that  I  love  you.  Farewell.  Persevere  in 
your  good  feelings  as  in  your  splendid  career,  and  be  happy. 
Your  friend." 

The  character  of  Biot,  a  puzzle  to  Sainte  Beuve,  seems  easier 
to  understand  after  reading  those  letters,  written  in  a  small 
conscientious  hand.  The  great  critic  wrote  :  "Who  will  give 
us  the  secret  key  to  Biot's  complex  nature,  to  the  curiosities, 
aptitudes,  envies,  prejudices,  sympathies,  antipathies,  folds 
and  creases  of  every  kind  in  his  character?"  Even  with  no 
other  documents,  the  history  of  his  relations  with  Pasteur 
would  throw  light  upon  this  nature,  not  so  "complex  "  after 
all.  From  the  day  when  Pasteur  worked  out  his  first  experi- 
ment before   Biot,   at    first   suspicious,   then   astonished   and 


1850  —1854  57 

finally  touched  to  the  heart,  until  the  period  of  absolute  mutual 
confidence  and  friendship,  we  see  rising  before  us  the  image  of 
this  true  scientist,  with  his  rare  independence,  his  good- will 
towards  laborious  men  and  his  mercilessness  to  every  man 
who,  loving  not  Science  for  its  own  sake,  looked  upon  a  dis- 
covery as  a  road  to  fortune,  pecuniary  or  political. 

He  loved  both  science  and  letters,  and,  now  that  age  had 
bent  his  tall  form,  instead  of  becoming  absorbed  in  his  own 
recollections  and  the  contemplation  of  his  own  labours,  he 
kept  his  mind  open,  happy  to  learn  more  every  day  and  to 
anticipate  the  future  of  Pasteur. 

During  the  vacation  of  1851  Pasteur  came  to  Paris  to  bring 
Biot  the  results  of  new  researches  on  aspartic  and  malic  acids, 
and  he  desired  his  father  to  join  him  in  order  to  efface  the  sad 
impression  left  by  his  former  journey  in  1838.  Biot  and  his 
wife  welcomed  the  father  and  son  as  they  would  have  welcomed 
very  few  friends.  Touched  by  so  much  kindness,  Joseph 
Pasteur  on  his  return  in  June  wrote  Biot  a  letter  full  of 
gratitude,  venturing  at  the  same  time  to  send  the  only  thing  it 
was  in  his  power  to  offer,  a  basket  of  fruit  from  his  garden. 
Biot  answered  as  follows  :  "  Sir,  my  wife  and  I  very  much 
appreciate  the  kind  expressions  in  the  letter  you  have  done  me 
the  honour  of  writing  me.  Our  welcome  to  you  was  indeed  as 
hearty  as  it  was  sincere,  for  I  assure  you  that  we  could  not  see 
without  the  deepest  interest  such  a  good  and  honourable  father 
sitting  at  our  modest  table  with  so  good  and  distinguished  a  son. 
I  have  never  had  occasion  to  show  that  excellent  young  man 
any  feelings  but  those  of  esteem  founded  on  his  merit,  and  an 
affection  inspired  by  his  personality.  It  is  the  greatest  pleasure 
that  I  can  experience  in  my  old  age,  to  see  young  men  of  talent 
working  industriously  and  trying  to  progress  in  a  scientific 
career  by  means  of  steady  and  persevering  labour,  and  not  by 
wretched  intriguing.  That  is  what  has  made  your  son  dear  to 
me,  and  his  affection  for  me  adds  yet  to  his  other  claims  and 
increases  that  which  I  feel  for  him.  We  are  therefore  even 
with  one  another.  As  to  your  kindness  in  wishing  that  I 
should  taste  fruit  from  your  garden,  I  am  very  grateful  for  it, 
and  I  accept  it  as  cordially  as  you  send  it." 

Pasteur  had  also  brought  Biot  some  other  products — a  case 
full  of  new  crystals.  Starting  from  the  external  configuration 
of  crystals,  he  penetrated  the  individual  constitution  of  their 
molecular  groups,  and  from  this  point  of  departure,  he  then 


58  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

had  recourse  to  the  resources  of  chemistry  and  optics.  Biot 
never  ceased  to  admire  the  sagacity  of  the  young  experi- 
mentahst  who  had  turned  what  had  until  then  been  a  mere 
crystallographic  character  into  an  element  of  chemical  research. 

Equally  interested  by  the  general  consequences  of  these 
studies,  so  delicate  and  so  precise,  M.  de  Senarmont  wished  in 
his  turn  to  examine  the  crystals.  No  one  approved  more  fully 
than  he  the  expressions  of  the  old  scientist,  who  ended  in  this 
way  his  1851  report  :  "  If  M.  Pasteur  persists  in  the  road  he 
has  opened,  it  may  be  predicted  of  him  that  what  he  has  found 
is  nothing  to  what  he  will  find."  And,  delighted  to  see  the 
important  position  that  Pasteur  was  taking  at  Strasburg  and 
the  unexpected  extension  of  crystallography,  Biot  wrote  to 
him  :  "I  have  read  with  much  interest  the  thesis  of  your 
brother-in-law,  M.  Loir.  It  is  well  conceived  and  well  written, 
and  he  establishes  with  clearness  many  very  curious  facts.  M. 
de  Senarmont  has  also  read  it  with  very  great  pleasure,  and  I 
beg  you  will  transmit  our  united  congratulations  to  your 
brother-in-law."  Biot  added,  mixing  as  he  was  wont  family 
details  with  scientific  ideas  :  "  We  highly  appreciated  your 
father,  the  rectitude  of  his  judgment,  his  firm,  calm,  simple 
reason  and  the  enlightened  love  he  bears  you." 

"  My  plan  of  study  is  traced  for  this  coming  year,"  wrote 
Pasteur  to  Chappuis  at  the  end  of  December.  "  I  am  hoping 
to  develop  it  shortly  in  the  most  successful  manner.  .  .  .  I  think 
I  have  already  told  you  that  I  am  on  the  verge  of  mysteries, 
and  that  the  veil  which  covers  them  is  getting  thinner  and 
thinner.  The  nights  seem  to  me  too  long,  yet  I  do  not  com- 
plain, for  I  prepare  my  lectures  easily,  and  often  have  five 
whole  days  a  week  that  I  can  give  up  to  the  laboratory.  I 
am  often  scolded  by  Mme.  Pasteur,  but  I  console  her  by  telling 
her  that  I  shall  lead  her  to  fame." 

He  already  foresaw  the  greatness  of  his  work.  However 
he  dare  not  speak  of  it,  and  kept  his  secret,  save  with  the 
confidante  who  was  now  a  collaborator,  ever  ready  to  act  as 
secretary,  watching  over  the  precious  health  of  which  he  him- 
self took  no  account,  an  admirable  helpmeet,  to  whom  might 
be  applied  the  Eoman  definition,  socia  rei  humance  atque  divince. 
Never  did  life  shower  more,  affection  upon  a  man.  Everything 
at  that  time  smiled  upon  him.  Two  fair  children  in  the  home, 
great  security  in  his  work,  no  enemies,  and  the  comfort  of 


1850—1854  59 

receiving  the  approval  and  counsel  of  masters  who  inspired  him 
with  a  feeling  of  veneration. 

"At  my  age,"  wrote  Biot  to  Pasteur,  "one  lives  only  in 
the  interest  one  takes  in  those  one  loves.  You  are  one  of  the 
small  number  who  can  provide  such  food  for  my  mind."  And 
alluding  in  that  same  letter  (December  22,  1851)  to  four  reports 
successively  approved  of  by  Balard,  Dumas,  Kegnault, 
Chevreul,  Senarmont  and  Thenard  :  "  I  was  very  happy  to  see, 
in  those  successive  announcements  of  ideas  of  so  new  and  so 
far-reaching  a  nature,  that  you  have  said — and  that  we  have 
made  you  say — nothing  that  should  now  be  contradicted  or 
objected  to  in  one  single  point.  I  still  have  in  my  hands  the 
pages  of  your  last  paper  concerning  the  optical  study  of  malic 
acid.  I  have  not  yet  returned  them  to  you,  as  I  wish  to  extract 
from  them  some  results  that  I  shall  place  to  your  credit  in  a 
paper  I  am  now  writing." 

It  was  no  longer  Biot  and  Senarmont  only  who  were  watch- 
ing the  growing  importance  of  Pasteur's  work.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1852  the  physicist  Eegnault  thought  of 
making  Pasteur  a  corresponding  member  of  the  Institute. 
Pasteur  was  still  under  thirty.  There  was  a  vacancy  in  the 
General  Physics  section,  why  not  offer  it  to  him?  said  Eegnault, 
with  his  usual  kindliness.  Biot  shook  his  head  :  "  It  is  to  the 
Chemistry  section  that  he  ought  to  belong."  And,  with  the 
courage  of  sincere  affection,  he  wrote  to  Pasteur,  "  Your  work 
marks  your  place  in  chemistry  rather  than  physics,  for  in 
chemistry  you  are  in  the  front  rank  of  inventors,  whilst  in 
physics  you  have  applied  processes  already  known  rather  than 
invented  new  ones.  Do  not  listen  to  people,  who,  without 
knowing  the  ground,  would  cause  you  to  desire,  and  even  to 
hastily  obtain,  a  distinction  which  would  be  above  your  real 
and  recognized  claims.  .  .  .  Besides,  you  can  see  for  yourself 
how  much  your  work  of  the  last  four  years  has  raised  you  in 
every  one's  estimation.  And  that  place,  which  you  have  made 
for  yourself  in  the  general  esteem,  has  the  advantage  of  not 
being  subject  to  the  fluctuations  of  the  ballot.  Farewell,  dear 
friend,  write  to  me  when  you  have  time,  and  be  assured  that 
my  interest  in  hard  workers  is  about  the  only  thing  which  yet 
makes  me  wish  to  live.     Your  friend." 

Pasteur  gratefully  accepted  these  wise  counsels.  In  an 
excess  of  modesty,  he  wrote  to  Dumas  that  he  should  not  apply 


60  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

as  candidate  even  if  a  place  for  a  correspondent  wei-e  vacant  in 
the  Chemistry  section.  "Do  you  then  beheve,"  answered 
Dumas  with  a  vivacity  very  unlike  his  usual  solemn  calmness, 
' '  do  you  believe  that  we  are  insensible  to  the  glory  which  your 
work  reflects  on  French  chemistry,  and  on  the  Ecole  from 
whence  you  come?  The  very  day  I  entered  the  Ministry,  I 
asked  for  the  Cross  ^  for  you.  I  should  have  had  in  giving  it  to 
you  myself  a  satisfaction  which  you  cannot  conceive.  I  don't 
know  whence  the  delay  and  difficulty  arise.  But  what  I  do 
know  is  that  you  make  my  blood  boil  when  you  speak  in  your 
letter  of  the  necessity  of  leaving  a  free  place  in  chemistry  to 
the  men  you  mention,  one  or  two  excepted.  .  .  .  What  opinion 
have  you  then  of  our  judgment?  When  there  is  a  vacant 
place,  you  shall  be  presented,  supported  and  elected.  It  is  a 
question  of  justice  and  of  the  great  interests  of  science  :  we 
shall  make  them  prevail.  .  .  .  When  the  day  comes,  there  will 
be  means  found  to  do  what  is  required  for  the  interests  of 
science,  of  which  you  are  one  of  the  firmest  pillars,  and  one  of 
the  most  glorious  hopes.     Heartily  yours." 

"  My  dear  father,"  wrote  Pasteur,  sending  his  father  a  copy 
of  this  letter,  "  I  hope  you  will  be  proud  of  M.  Dumas'  letter. 
It  surprised  me  very  much.  I  did  not  believe  that  my  work 
deserved  such  a  splendid  testimony,  though  I  recognize  its 
great  importance." 

Thus  were  associated  in  Pasteur  the  full  consciousness  of  his 
great  mental  power  with  an  extreme  ingenuousness.  Instead 
of  the  pride  and  egotism  provoked,  almost  excusably,  in  so 
many  superior  men  by  excessive  strength,  his  character  pre- 
sented the  noblest  delicacy. 

Another  arrangement  occurred  to  Eegnault  :  that  he  himself 
should  accept  the  direction  of  the  Sevres  Manufactory,  and 
give  up  to  Pasteur  his  professorship  at  the  Ecole  Poly  technique. 
Others  suggested  that  Pasteur  should  become  chief  lecturer  at 
the  Ecole  Normale.  Eumours  of  these  possibilities  reached 
Strasburg,  but  Pasteur's  thoughts  were  otherwise  absorbed. 
He  was  concerned  with  the  manner  in  which  he  could  modify 
the  crystalline  forms  of  certain  substances  which,  though 
optically  activ6,  did  not  at  the  first  view  present  the  hemihedral 
character,  and  with  the  possibility  of  provoking  the  significant 
faces  by  varying  the  nature  of  the  dissolving  agents.     Biot  was 

'  Of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 


1850—1854  61 

anxious  that  he  should  not  be  disturbed  in  these  ingenious 
researches,  and  advised  him  to  remain  at  Strasburg  in  terms 
as  vigorous  as  any  of  his  previous  advice.  "  As  to  the  accidents 
which  come  from  or  depend  on  men's  caprice,  be  strong- 
minded  enough  to  disdain  them  yet  awhile.  Do  not  trouble 
about  anything,  but  pursue  indefatigably  your  great  career. 
You  will  be  rewarded  in  the  end,  the  more  certainly  and  un- 
questionably that  you  will  have  deserved  it  more  fully.  The 
time  is  not  far  when  those  who  can  serve  you  efficiently  will 
feel  as  much  pride  in  doing  so  as  shame  and  embarrassment 
in  not  having  done  so  already." 

When  Pasteur  came  to  Paris  in  August,  for  what  he  might 
have  called  his  annual  pilgrimage,  Biot  had  reserved  for  him  a 
most  agreeable  surprise.  Mitscherlich  was  in  Paris,  where 
he  had  come,  accompanied  by  another  German  crystallo- 
grapher,  G.  Eose,  to  thank  the  Academic  for  appointing  him 
a  foreign  Associate.  They  both  expressed  a  desire  to  see 
Pasteur,  who  was  staying  in  a  hotel  in  the  Kue  de  Tournon. 
Biot,  starting  for  his  daily  walk  round  the  Luxembourg 
Garden,  left  this  note  :  "  Please  come  to  my  house  to-morrow 
at  8  a.m.,  if  possible  with  your  products.  M.  Mitscherlich  and 
M.  Eose  are  coming  at  9  to  see  them."  The  interview  was 
lengthy  and  cordial.  In  a  letter  to  his  father — who  now  knew 
a  great  deal  about  crystals  and  their  forms,  thanks  to  Pasteur's 
lucid  explanations — we  find  these  words.  "  I  spent  two  and  a 
half  hours  with  them  on  Sunday  at  the  College  de  France, 
showing  them  my  crystals.  They  were  much  pleased,  and 
highly  praised  my  work.  I  dined  with  them  on  Tuesday  at  M. 
Thenard's ;  you  will  like  to  see  the  names  of  the  guests  : 
Messrs.  Mitscherlich,  Eose,  Dumas,  Chevreul,  Eegnault, 
Pelouze,  Peligot,  C.  Prevost,  and  Bussy.  You  see  I  was  the 
only  outsider,  they  are  all  members  of  the  Academic.  .  .  .  But 
the  chief  advantage  of  my  meeting  these  gentlemen  is  that  I 
have  heard  from  them  the  important  fact  that  there  is  a 
manufacturer  in  Germany  who  again  produces  some  racemic 
acid.  I  intend  to  go  and  see  him  and  his  products,  so  as  to 
study  thoroughly  that  singular  substance." 

At  the  time  when  scientific  novels  were  in  fashion,  a  whole 
chapter  might  have  been  written  on  Pasteur  in  search  of  that 
acid.  In  order  to  understand  in  a  measure  his  emotion  on 
learning  that  a  manufacturer  in  Saxony  possessed  this 
mysterious  acid,  we  must  remember  that  the  racemic  acid— 


62  THE  LIFE  OF^PASTEUR 

produced  for  the  first  time  by  Kestner  at  Thann  in  1820, 
through  a  mere  accident  in  the  manufacture  of  tartaric  acid — 
had  suddenly  ceased  to  appear,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  obtain 
it  again.     What  then  was  the  origin  of  it? 

Mitscherlich  believed  that  the  tartars  employed  by  this 
Saxony  manufacturer  came  from  Trieste.  "I  shall  go  to 
Trieste,"  said  Pasteur;  "  I  shall  go  to  the  end  of  the  world. 
I  7nust  discover  the  source  of  racemic  acid,  I  must  follow  up  the 
tartars  to  their  origin."  Was  the  acid  existent  in  crude 
tartars,  such  as  Kestner  received  in  1820  from  Naples,  Sicily, 
or  Oporto  ?  This  was  all  the  more  probable  from  the  fact  that 
from  the  day  when  Kestner  began  to  use  semi-refined  tartars 
he  had  no  longer  found  any  racemic  acid.  Should  one  conclude 
that  it  remained  stored  up  in  the  mother-liquor? 

With  a  feverish  impetuosity  that  nothing  could  soothe, 
Pasteur  begged  Biot  and  Dumas  to  obtain  for  him  a  mission 
from  the  Ministry  or  the  Academic.  Exasperated  by  red  tape 
delays,  he  was  on  the  point  of  writing  directly  to  the  President 
of  the  Kepublic.  "It  is  a  question,"  he  said,  "that  France 
should  make  it  a  point  of  honour  to  solve  through  one  of  her 
children."  Biot  endeavoured  to  moderate  this  excessive 
impatience.  "It  is  not  necessary  to  set  the  Government  in 
motion  for  this,"  he  said,  a  little  quizzically.  "  The  Academy, 
when  informed  of  your  motives  might  very  well  contribute  a 
few  thousand  francs  towards  researches  on  the  racemic  acid." 
But  when  Mitscherlich  gave  Pasteur  a  letter  of  recommendation 
to  the  Saxony  manufacturer,  whose  name  was  Fikentscher  and 
who  lived  near  Leipzig,  Pasteur  could  contain  himself  no 
longer,  and  went  off,  waiting  for  nothing  and  listening  to  no  one. 
His  travelling  impressions  were  of  a  peculiar  nature.  We  will 
extract  passages  from  a  sort  of  diary  addressed  to  Madame 
Pasteur  so  that  she  might  share  the  emotions  of  this  pursuit. 
He  starts  his  campaign  on  the  12th  September.  "  I  do  not 
stop  at  Leipzig,  but  go  on  to  Zwischau,  and  then  to  M. 
Fikentscher.  I  leave  him  at  nightfall  and  go  back  to  him  the 
next  morning  very  early.  I  have  spent  all  to-day,  Sunday, 
with  him.  M.  Fikentscher  is  a  very  clever  man,  and  he  baa 
shown  me  his  whole  manufactory  in  every  detail,  keeping  no 
secrets  from  me.  .  .  .  His  factory  is  most  prosperous.  It 
comprises  a  group  of  houses  which,  from  a  distance,  and 
situated  on  a  height  as  they  are,  look  almost  like  a  little  village. 


1850—1854      -  63 

It  is  surrounded  by  20  hectares^  of  well  cultivated  ground. 
All  this  is  the  result  of  a  few  years'  work.  As  to  the  question, 
here  is  a  Tittle  information  that  you  will  keep  strictly  to  your- 
self for  the  present.  M.  Fikentscher  obtained  racemic  acid 
for  the  first  time  about  twenty-two  years  ago.  He  prepared  at 
that  time  rather  a  large  quantity.  Since  then  only  a  very  small 
amount  has  been  formed  in  the  process  of  manufacture  and  he 
has  not  troubled  to  preserve  it.  When  he  used  to  obtain  most, 
his  tartars  came  from  Trieste.  This  confirms,  though  not  in 
every  point,  what  I  heard  from  M.  Mitscherlich.  Anyhow, 
here  is  my  plan  :  Having  no  laboratory  at  Zwischau,  I  have  just 
returned  to  Leipzig  with  two  kinds  of  tartars  that  M. 
Fikentscher  now  uses,  some  of  which  come  from  Austria,  and 
some  from  Italy.  M.  Fikentscher  has  assured  me  that  I 
should  be  very  well  received  here  by  divers  professors,  who 
know  my  name  very  well,  he  says.  To-morrow  Monday  morn- 
ing, I  will  go  to  the  Universite  and  set  up  in  some  laboratory 
or  other.  I  think  that  in  five  or  six  days  I  shall  have  finished 
my  examination  of  these  tartars.  Then  I  shall  start  for 
Vienna,  where  I  shall  stay  two  or  three  days  and  rapidly  study 
Hungarian  tartars.  .  .  .  Finally  I  shall  go  to  Trieste,  where  I 
shall  find  tartars  of  divers  countries,  notably  those  of  the 
Levant,  and  those  of  the  neighbourhood  of  Trieste  itself.  On 
arriving  here  at  M,  Fikentscher's  I  have  unfortunately  dis- 
covered a  very  regrettable  circumstance.  It  is  that  the  tartars 
he  uses  have  already  been  through  one  process  in  the  country 
from  which  they  are  exported,  and  this  process  is  such  that  it 
evidently  eliminates  and  loses  the  greater  part  of  the  racemic 
acid.  At  least  I  think  so.  I  must  therefore  go  to  the  place 
itself.  If  I  had  enough  money  I  should  go  on  to  Italy ;  but 
that  is  impossible,  it  will  be  for  next  year.  I  shall  give  ten 
years  to  it  if  necessary ;  but  it  will  not  be,  and  I  am  sure  that 
in  my  very  next  letter  I  shall  be  able  to  tell  you  that  I  have 
some  good  results.  For  instance,  I  am  almost  sure  to  find  a 
prompt  means  of  testing  tartars  from  the  point  of  view  of 
racemic  acid.  That  is  a  point  of  primary  importance  for  my 
work.  I  want  to  go  quickly  through  examining  all  these 
different  tartars ;  that  will  be  my  first  study.  .  .  .  M. 
Fikentscher  will  take  nothing  for  his  products.  It  is  true  that 
I  have  given  him  hints  and  some  of  my  own  enthusiasm.  He 
^  Hectare  :  French  measure  of  surface,  about  2|  acres,     [Trans.] 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

wants  to  prepare  for  commercial  purposes  some  left  tartaric 
acid,  and  I  have  given  him  all  the  necessary  crystallographic 
indications.     I  have  no  doubt  he  will  succeed." 

Leipzig,  Wednesday,  September  15,  1852.  "  My  dear 
Marie,  I  do  not  want  to  wait  until  I  have  the  results  of  my 
researches  before  writing  to  you  again.  And  yet  I  have 
nothing  to  tell  you,  for  I  have  not  left  the  laboratory  for  three 
days,  and  I  know  nothing  of  Leipzig  but  the  street  which 
goes  from  the  Hotel  de  Baviere  to  the  Universite.  I  come 
home  at  dusk,  dine,  and  go  to  bed.  I  have  only  received, 
in  M.  Erdmann's  study,  the  visit  of  Professor  Hankel,  pro- 
fessor of  physics  of  the  Leipzig  Universite,  who  has  translated 
all  my  treatises  in  a  German  paper  edited  by  M.  Erdmann. 
He  has  also  studied  hemihedral  crystals,  and  I  enjoyed  talking 
with  him.  I  shall  also  soon  meet  the  professor  of  mineralogy, 
M.  Naumann. 

"  To-morrow  only  shall  I  have  a  first  result  concerning 
racemic  acid.  I  shall  stay  about  ten  days  longer  in  Leipzig, 
It  is  more  than  I  told  you ,  and  the  reason  lies  in  rather  a  happy 
circumstance.  M.  Fikentscher  has  kindly  written  to  me  and  to 
a  firm  in  Leipzig,  and  I  heard  yesterday  from  the  head  of  that 
firm  that,  very  likely,  they  can  get  me  to-morrow  some  tartars 
absolutely  crude  and  of  the  same  origin  as  M.  Fikentscher's. 
The  same  gentleman  has  given  me  some  information  about  a 
factory  at  Venice,  and  will  give  me  a  letter  of  recommendation 
to  a  firm  in  that  city,  also  for  Trieste.  In  this  way  the  journey  I 
proposed  to  make  in  that  town  will  not  simply  be  a  pleasure 
trip.  ...  I  shall  write  to  M.  Biot  as  soon  as  I  have  important 
results.  To-day  has  been  a  good  day,  and  in  about  three  or 
four  more  you  will  no  doubt  receive  a  satisfactory  letter." 

Leipzig,  September  18,  1852.  "My  dear  Marie,  the  very 
question  which  has  brought  me  here  is  surrounded  with  very 
great  difficulties.  ...  I  have  only  studied  one  tartar 
thoroughly  since  I  have  been  here ;  it  comes  from  Naples  and 
has  been  refined  once.  It  contains  racemic  acid,  but  in  such 
infinitesimal  proportions  that  it  can  only  be  detected  by  the 
most  delicate  process.  It  is  only  by  manufacture  on  a  very 
large  scale  that  a  certain  quantity  could  be  prepared.  But  I 
must  tell  you  that  the  first  operation  undergone  by  this  tartar 
must  have  deprived  it  almost  entirely  of  racemic  acid.  For- 
tunately M.  Fikentscher  is  a  most  enlightened  man,  he 
perfectly  understands  the  importance  of  this  acid  and  he  is 


1850—1854  65 

prepared  to  follow  most  minutely  the  indications  that  I  shall 
give  him  in  order  to  obtain  this  singular  substance  in  quantities 
such  that  it  can  again  be  easily  turned  into  commercial  use. 
I  can  already  conceive  the  history  of  this  product.  M.  Kestner 
must  have  had  at  his  disposal  in  1820  some  Neapolitan  tartars, 
as  indeed  he  said  he  had,  and  he  must  have  operated  on  crude 
tartar.  That  is  the  whole  secret.  .  .  .  But  is  it  certain  that 
almost  the  whole  of  the  acid  is  lost  in  the  first  manufacture 
andergone  by  tartar?  I  believe  it  is.  But  it  must  be  proved. 
There  are  at  Trieste  and  at  Venice  two  tartar  refineries  of 
which  I  have  the  addresses.  I  also  have  letters  of  introduction. 
I  shall  examine  there  (if  I  find  a  laboratory)  the  residual  pro- 
ducts, and  I  shall  make  minute  inquiries  respecting  the  places 
the  tartars  used  in  those  two  cities  come  from.  Finally,  I  shall 
procure  a  few  kilogrammes,  which  I  shall  carefully  study  when 
I  get  back  to  France.   ..." 

Freiberg,  September  23,  1852.  "  I  arrived  on  the  evening 
of  the  21st  at  Dresden,  and  I  had  to  wait  until  eleven  the  next 
morning  to  have  my  passport  vise,  so  I  could  not  start  for 
Freiberg  before  seven  p.m.  I  took  advantage  of  that  day  to 
visit  the  capital  of  Saxony,  and  I  can  assure  you  that  I  saw 
some  admirable  things.  There  is  a  most  beautiful  museum 
containing  pictures  by  the  first  masters  of  every  school.  I 
spent  over  four  hours  in  the  galleries,  noting  on  my  catalogue 
the  pictures  I  most  enjoyed.  Those  I  liked  I  marked  with  a 
cross ;  but  I  soon  put  two ,  three  crosses ,  according  to  the 
degree  of  my  enthusiasm.     I  even  went  as  far  as  four. 

' '  I  also  visited  what  they  call  the  green  vault  room ,  an 
absolutely  unique  collection  of  works  of  art,  gems,  jewels  .  .  . 
then  some  churches,  avenues,  admirable  bridges  across  the 
Elbe.   .   .   . 

"  I  then  started  for  Freiberg  at  7.  .  .  .  My  love  of  crystals 
took  me  first  to  the  learned  Professor  of  mineralogy,  Breithaupt, 
who  received  me  as  one  would  not  be  received  in  France. 
After  a  short  colloquy,  he  passed  into  the  next  room,  came  back 
in  a  black  tail-coat  with  three  little  decorations  in  his  button 
hole,  and  told  me  he  would  first  present  me  to  the  Baron  von 
Beust,  Superintendent  of  Factories,  so  as  to  obtain  a  permit 
to  visit  the  latter.  .  .  .  Then  he  took  me  for  a  walk,  talking 
crystals  the  whole  time.   ..." 

p,S._"  Mind  you  tell  M.  Biot  how  I  was  received;  it  will 
please  him." 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTED 

Vienna,  September  27,  1852.  "Yesterday,  Monday  morn- 
ing, I  set  out  to  call  upon  several  people.  Unfortunately,  I 
hear  that  Professor  Schrotten  is  at  Wiesbaden,  at  a  scientific 
congress,  as  well  as  M.  Seybel,  a  manufacturer  of  tartaric  acid. 
M.  Miller,  a  merchant  for  whom  I  had  a  letter  of  recommenda- 
tion, was  kind  enough  to  ask  M.  Seybel's  business  manager 
for  permission  for  me  to  ^nsit  the  factory  in  his  absence.  He 
refused,  saying  he  was  not  authorized.  But  I  did  not  give  in  ; 
I  asked  for  the  addresses  of  Viennese  professors,  and  I  for- 
tunately came  upon  that  of  a  very  well  known  scientific  man, 
M.  Eedtenbacher,  who  has  been  kind  to  me  beyond  all 
description.  At  6  a.m.  he  came  to  my  hotel,  and  we  took  the 
train  at  7  for  the  Seybel  manufactory,  which  is  at  a  little  dis- 
tance from  Vienna.  We  were  received  by  the  chemist  of  the 
factory,  who  made  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  introducing 
us  into  the  sanctuary,  and  after  many  questions  we  ended  by 
being  convinced  that  the  famous  racemic  acid  was  seen  there 
last  winter.  ...  I  reserve  for  later  many  details  of  great 
interest,  for  here  they  have  operated  for  years  on  crude  tartar. 
I  came  away  very  happy. 

"  There  is  another  factory  of  tartaric  acid  in  Vienna.  We 
go  there ;  I  repeat  through  M.  Eedtenbacher  my  string  of 
questions.  They  have  seen  nothing.  I  ask  to  see  their 
products,  and  I  come  upon  a  barrel  full  of  tartaric  acid  crystals, 
on  the  surface  of  which  I  think  I  perceive  the  substance.  A 
first  test  made  with  dirty  old  glasses  then  and  there  confirms 
my  doubts ;  they  become  a  certainty  a  few  moments  later  at 
M.  Eedtenbacher' s  laboratory.  We  dine  together ;  then  we 
go  back  to  the  factory,  where  we  learn,  miraculous  to  relate, 
that  they  are  just  now  embarrassed  in  their  manufacturing 
process,  and,  almost  certainly,  the  product  which  hinders  them 
— though  it  is  in  a  very  small  quantity,  and  they  take  it  for 
sulphate  of  potash — is  no  other  than  racemic  acid.  I  wish  I 
could  give  you  more  details  of  this  eventful  day.  I  was  to 
have  left  Vienna  to-day,  but,  as  you  will  understand,  I  shall 
stay  until  I  have  unravelled  this  question.  I  have  already  in 
the  laboratory  three  kinds  of  products  from  the  factory.  To- 
morrow night,  or  the  day  after,  I  shall  know  what  to  think.  .  .  . 

"  You  remember  what  I  used  to  say  to  you  and  to  M.  Dumas, 
that  almost  certainly  the  first  operation  which  tartar  goes 
through  in  certain  factories  causes  it  to  lose  all  or  nearly  all  its 
racemic  acid.     Well,  in  the  two  Viennese  factories,  it  is  only 


1850—1854  67 

two  years  since  they  began  to  operate  on  crude  tartar,  and  it  is 
only  two  years  since  they  first  saw  the  supposed  sulphate  of 
potash,  the  supposed  sulphate  of  magnesia.  For,  at  M. 
Seybel's,  they  had  taken  for  sulphate  of  magnesia  the  little 
crystals  of  racemic  acid. 

"  Shortly,  this  is  as  far  as  I  have  come — I  spare  you  many 
details  : — 

1.  "  The  Naples  tartar  contains  racemic  acid. 

2.  "  The  Austrian  tartar  (neighbourhood  of  Vienna)  contains 
racemic  acid. 

3.  "  The  tartars  of  Hungary,  Croatia,  Carniola  contain 
racemic  acid. 

4.  "  The  tartar  of  Naples  contains  notably  more  than  the 
latter,  for  it  presents  racemic  acid  even  after  one  refining 
process,  whilst  that  from  Austria  and  Hungary  only  presents 
it  when  in  the  crude  state. 

' '  I  believe  it  now  to  be  extremely  probable  that  I  shall  find 
some  racemic  acid  in  French  tartars,  but  in  very  small  quanti- 
ties ;  and  if  it  is  not  detected  it  is  because  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  manufacture  of  tartaric  acid  are  unknown  or  un- 
appreciated, or  because  some  little  precaution  is  neglected  that 
would  preserve  it  or  make  it  visible. 

"  You  see,  dear  Marie,  how  useful  was  my  journey." 

"  Vienna,  September  30,  1852.  I  am  not  going  to  Trieste; 
I  shall  start  for  Prague  this  evening." 

"Prague,  October  1,  1852.  Here  is  a  startling  piece  of 
news.  I  arrive  in  Prague ;  I  settle  down  in  the  Hotel 
d'Angleterre,  have  lunch,  and  call  on  M.  Eochleder,  Professor 
of  chemistry,  so  that  he  may  introduce  me  to  the  manufacturer. 
I  go  to  the  chemist  of  the  factory,  Dr.  Eassmann,  for  whom  I 
had  a  letter  from  M.  Eedtenbacher,  his  former  master.  That 
letter  contained  all  the  questions  that  I  usually  make  to  the 
manufacturers  of  tartaric  acid. 

"  Dr.  Bassmann  hardly  took  time  to  read  the  letter ;  he  saw 
what  it  dealt  with,  and  said  to  me  :  '  I  have  long  obtained 
racemic  acid.  The  Paris  Pharmaceutical  Society  offered  a 
prize  for  whoever  manufactured  it.  It  is  a  product  of  manu- 
facture ;  I  obtain  it  with  the  assistance  of  tartaric  acid. '  I 
took  the  chemist's  hand  affectionately,  and  made  him  repeat 
what  he  had  said.  Then  I  added  :  '  You  have  made  one  of  the 
greatest  discoveries  that  it  is  possible  to  make  in  chemistry. 
Perhaps  you  do  not  realise  as  I  do  the  full  importance  of  it. 

F  2 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

But  allow  me  to  tell  you  that,  with  my  ideas,  I  look  upon  that 
discovery  as  impossible.  I  do  not  ask  for  your  secret ;  I  shall 
await  the  publication  of  it  with  the  greatest  impatience.  So 
that  is  really  true?  You  take  a  kilogramme  of  pure  tartaric 
acid,  and  with  that  you  make  racemic  acid? ' 

Yes,'  he  said ;  '  but  it  is  still '   .   .   .  and  as  he  had  some 
difficulty  in  expressing  himself,  I  said  :  '  It  is  still  surrounded 
with  great  difficulties  ?  ' 
Yes,  monsieur.' 

Great  heavens  !  what  a  discovery  !  if  he  had  really  done 
what  he  says  !  But  no ;  it  is  impossible.  There  is  an  abyss 
to  cross,  and  chemistry  is  yet  too  young." 

Second  letter,  same  date.  "  M.  Eassmann  is  mistaken.  .  .  . 
He  has  never  obtained  racemic  acid  with  pure  tartaric  acid. 
He  does  what  M.  Fikentscher  and  the  Viennese  manufacturers 
do,  with  slight  differences,  which  confirm  the  general  opinion 
I  expressed  in  my  letter  to  M.  Dumas  a  few  days  ago." 

That  letter,  and  also  another  addressed  to  Biot,  indicated 
that  racemic  acid  was  formed  in  varying  quantities  in  the 
mother-liquor,  which  remained  after  the  purification  of  crude 
tartars. 

"I  can  at  last,"  Pasteur  wrote  from  Leipzig  to  his  wife, 

turn  my  steps  again  towards  France.  I  want  it ;  I  am  very 
weary." 

In  an  account  of  this  journey  in  a  newspaper  called 
La  Virile  there  was  this  sentence,  which  amused  everybody, 
Pasteur  included  :  "  Never  w^as  treasure  sought,  never  adored 
beauty  pursued  over  hill  and  vale  with  greater  ardour." 

But  the  hero  of  scientific  adventures  was  not  satisfied.  He 
had  foreseen  by  the  examination  of  crystalline  forms,  the 
correlation  between  hemihedral  dissymmetry  and  rotatory 
power;  this  was,  to  his  mind,  a  happy  foresight.  He  had 
afterwards  succeeded  in  separating  the  racemic  acid,  inactive 
on  polarized  light,  into  two  acids,  left  and  right,  endowed  with 
equal  but  contrary  rotatory  powers ;  this  was  a  discovery 
deservedly  qualified  as  memorable  by  good  judges  in  those 
matters.  Now  he  had  indicated  the  mother-liquor  as  a  source 
of  racemic  acid,  and  this  was  a  precious  observation  that 
Kestner,  who  was  specially  interested  in  the  question,  confirmed 
in  a  letter  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences  (December,  1852), 
sending  at  the  same  time  three  large  phials  of  racemic  acid, 
one  of  which,  made  of  thin  glass,  broke  in  Biot's  hands.     But 


1850—1854  69 

a  great  advance,  apparently  unrealizable,  remained  yet  to  be 
accomplished.  Could  not  racemic  acid  be  produced  by  the  aid 
of  tartaric  acid  ? 

Pasteur  himself,  as  he  told  the  optimist  Eassmann,  did  not 
believe  such  a  transformation  possible.  But,  by  dint  of  in- 
genious patience,  of  trials,  of  efforts  of  all  sorts,  he  fancied  he 
was  nearing  the  goal.  He  wrote  to  his  father  :  "  I  am  think- 
ing of  one  thing  only,  of  the  hope  of  a  brilliant  discovery  which 
seems  not  vefy  far.  But  the  result  I  foresee  is  so  extraordinary 
that  I  dare  not  believe  it."  He  told  Biot  and  Senarmont  of 
this  hope.  Both  seemed  to  doubt.  "I  advise  you,"  wrote 
Senarmont ,  ' '  not  to  speak  until  you  can  say  :  '  I  obtain 
racemic  acid  artificially  with  some  tartaric  acid,  of  which  I 
have  myself  verified  the  purity ;  the  artificial  acid,  like  the 
natural,  divides  itself  into  equal  equivalents  of  left  and  right 
tartaric  acids,  and  those  acids  have  the  forms,  the  optical  pro- 
perties, all  the  chemical  properties  of  those  obtained  from  the 
natural  acid.'  Do  not  believe  that  I  want  to  worry  you;  the 
scruples  I  have  for  you  I  should  have  for  myself ;  it  is  well  to 
be  doubly  sure  when  dealing  with  such  a  fact."  But  with 
Biot,  Senarmont  was  less  reserved ;  he  believed  the  thing  done. 
He  said  so  to  Biot,  who,  prudent  and  cautious,  still  desirous  of 
warning  Pasteur,  wrote  to  him  on  May  27,  1853,  speaking  of 
Senarmont  :  "  The  affection  with  which  your  work,  your  per- 
severance and  your  moral  character  have  inspired  him  makes 
him  desire  impossible  prodigies  for  you.  My  friendship  for 
you  is  less  hastily  hopeful  and  harder  to  convince.  However, 
enjoy  his  friendship  fully,  and  be  as  unreserved  with  him  as 
you  are  with  me.  You  can  do  so  in  full  security ;  I  do  not 
know  a  stronger  character  than  his.  I  have  said  and  repeated 
to  him  how  happy  I  am  to  see  the  affection  he  bears  you. 
For  there  will  be  at  least  one  man  who  will  love  you  and  under- 
stand you  when  I  am  gone.  Farewell ;  enough  sermons  for 
to-day ;  a  man  must  be  as  I  am,  in  his  eightieth  year,  to  write 
such  long  homilies.  Fortunately  you  are  accustomed  to  mine, 
and  do  not  mind  them." 

At  last,  on  the  first  of  June,  here  is  the  letter  announcing 
the  great  fact:  "My  dear  father,  I  have  just  sent  out  the 
following  telegram  :  Monsieur  Biot,  College  de  France,  Paris. 
I  transform  tartaric  acid  into  racemic  acid;  please  inform  MM. 
Dumas  and  Senarmont.  Here  is  at  last  that  racemic  acid 
(which  I  went  to  seek  at  Vienna)  artificially  obtained  through 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tartaric  acid.  I  long  believed  that  that  transformation  was 
impossible.  This  discovery  will  have  incalculable  conse- 
quences." 

"  I  congratulate  you,"  answered  Biot  on  the  second  of  June. 
"  Your  discovery  is  now  complete.  M.  de  Senarmont  will  be  as 
delighted  as  I  am.  Please  congratulate  also  Mme.  Pasteur  from 
me ;  she  must  be  as  pleased  as  you."  It  was  by  maintaining 
tartrate  of  cinchonin  at  a  high  temperature  for  several  hours 
that  Pasteur  Had  succeeded  in  transforming  tartaric  acid  into 
racemic  acid.  Without  entering  here  into  technical  details 
(which  are  to  be  found  in  a  report  of  the  Paris  Pharmaceutical 
Society,  concerning  the  prize  accorded  to  Pasteur  for  the 
artificial  production  of  racemic  acid)  it  may  be  added  that  he 
had  also  produced  the  neutral  tartaric  acid — that  is  :  with  no 
action  on  polarized  light — which  appeared  at  the  expense  of 
racemic  acid  already  formed.  There  were  henceforth  four 
different  tartaric  acids  : — (1)  the  right  or  dextro-tartaric  acid ; 
(2)  the  left  or  laevo-tartaric  acid ;  (3)  the  combination  of  the 
right  and  the  left  or  racemic  acid  ;  and  (4)  the  meso-tartaric 
acid,  optically  inactive. 

The  reports  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences  also  contain 
accounts  of  occasional  discoveries,  of  researches  of  all  kinds 
accessory  to  the  history  of  racemic  acid.  Thus  aspartic  acid 
had  caused  Pasteur  to  make  a  sudden  journey  from  Strasburg 
to  Vendome.  A  chemist  named  Dessaignes — who  was  munici- 
pal receiver  of  that  town,  and  who  found  time  through  sheer 
love  of  science  for  researches  on  the  constitution  of  divers  sub- 
stances— had  announced  a  fact  which  Pasteur  wished  to  verify  ; 
it  turned  out  to  be  inaccurate. 

One  whole  sitting  of  the  Academie,  the  third  of  January, 
1853,  was  given  up  to  Pasteur's  name  and  growing  achieve- 
ments. 

After  all  this  Pasteur  came  back  to  Arbois  with  the  red 
ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  He  had  not  won  it  in  the  same 
way  as  his  father  had,  but  he  deserved  it  as  fully.  Joseph 
Pasteur,  delighting  in  his  illustrious  son,  wrote  effusively  to 
Biot ;  indeed  the  old  scientist  had  had  his  share  in  this  act  of 
justice.  Biot  answered  in  the  following  letter,  which  is  a 
further  revelation  of  his  high  and  independent  ideal  of  a  scien- 
tific career. 

"Monsieur,  your  good  heart  makes  out  my  share  to  be 
greater  than  it  is.     The  splendid  discoveries  made  by  your 


1850—1854  71 

worthy  and  excellent  son,  his  devotion  to  science,  his  indefatig- 
able perseverance,  the  conscientious  care  with  which  he  fulfils 
the  duties  of  his  situation,  all  this  had  made  his  position  such 
that  there  was  no  need  to  solicit  for  him  what  he  had  so  long 
deserved.  But  one  might  boldly  point  out  that  it  would  be  a 
real  loss  to  the  Order  if  he  were  not  promptly  included  within 
its  ranks.  That  is  what  I  did,  and  I  am  very  glad  to  see  that 
the  too  long  delay  is  now  at  an  end.  I  wished  for  this  all  the 
more  as  I  knew  of  your  affectionate  desire  that  this  act  of  justice 
should  be  done.  Allow  me  to  add,  however,  that  in  our  pro- 
fession our  real  distinction  depends  on  us  alone,  fortunately, 
and  not  on  the  favour  or  indifference  of  a  minister.  In  the 
position  that  your  son  has  acquired,  his  reputation  will  grow 
with  his  work,  no  other  help  being  needed;  and  the  esteem 
he  already  enjoys,  and  which  will  grow  day  by  day,  will  be 
accorded  to  him,  without  gainsaying  or  appeal,  by  the  Grand 
Jury  of  scientists  of  all  nations — an  absolutely  just  tribunal, 
the  only  one  we  recognize. 

"  Allow  me  to  add  to  my  congratulations  the  expression  of 
the  esteem  and  cordial  affection  with  which  you  have  in- 
spired me." 

On  his  return  to  Strasburg  Pasteur  went  to  live  in  a  house 
in  the  Rue  des  Couples,  which  suited  him  as  being  near  the 
Academie  and  his  laboratory ;  it  also  had  a  garden  where  his 
children  could  play.  He  was  full  of  projects,  and  what  he 
called  the  ' '  spirit  of  invention  ' '  daily  suggested  some  new 
undertaking.  The  neighbourhood  of  Germany,  at  that  time  a 
veritable  hive  of  busy  bees,  was  a  fertile  stimulant  to  the 
French  Faculty  at  Strasburg. 

But  material  means  were  lacking.  When  Pasteur  received 
the  prize  of  1,500  francs  given  him  by  the  Pharmaceutical  So- 
ciety, he  gave  up  half  of  it  to  buying  instruments  which  the 
Strasburg  laboratory  was  too  poor  to  afford.  The  resources  then 
placed  by  the  State  at  his  disposal  by  way  of  contribution  to 
the  expenses  of  a  chemistry  class  only  consisted  of  1,200  francs 
under  the  heading  "  class  expenses."  Pasteur  had  to  pay  the 
wages  of  his  laboratory  attendant  out  of  it.  Now  that  he  was 
better  provided,  thanks  to  his  prize,  he  renewed  his  studies  on 
crystals. 

Taking  up  an  octahedral  crystal,  he  broke  off  a  piece  of  it, 
then  replaced  it  in  its  mother-hquor.  Whilst  the  crystal  was 
growing  larger  in  every  direction  by  a  deposit  of  crystalline  par- 


72  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tides,  a  very  active  formation  was  taking  place  on  the  muti- 
lated part ;  after  a  few  hours  the  crystal  had  again  assumed  its 
original  shape.  The  healing  up  of  wounds,  said  Pasteur,  might 
be  compared  to  that  physical  phenomenon.  Claude  Bernard, 
much  struck  later  on  by  these  experiments  of  Pasteur's  and 
recalling  them  with  much  praise,  said  in  his  turn — 

' '  These  reconstituting  phenomena  of  crystalline  redintegration 
afford  a  complete  comparison  with  those  presented  by  living 
beings  in  the  case  of  a  wound  more  or  less  deep.  In  the  crystal 
as  in  the  animal,  the  damaged  part  heals,  gradually  taking  back 
its  original  shape,  and  in  both  cases  the  reformation  of  tissue 
is  far  more  active  in  that  particular  part  than  under  ordinary 
evolutive  conditions." 

Thus  those  two  great  minds  saw  affinities  hidden  under  facts 
apparently  far  apart.  Other  similarities  yet  more  unexpected 
carried  Pasteur  away  towards  the  highest  region  of  speculation. 
He  spoke  with  enthusiasm  of  molecular  dissymmetry ;  he  saw 
it  everywhere  in  the  universe.  These  studies  in  dissymmetry 
gave  birth  twenty  years  later  to  a  new  science  arising  immedi- 
ately out  of  his  work,  viz.  stereo-chemistry,  or  the  chemistry  of 
space.  He  also  saw  in  molecular  dissymmetry  the  influence  of 
a  great  cosmic  cause — 

"The  universe,"  he  said  one  day,  "  is  a  dissymmetrical 
whole.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  hfe,  as  manifested  to  us, 
must  be  a  function  of  the  dissymmetry  of  the  universe  and  of 
the  consequences  it  produces.  The  universe  is  dissymmetrical ; 
for,  if  the  whole  of  the  bodies  which  compose  the  solar  system 
were  placed  before  a  glass  moving  with  their  individual  move- 
ments, the  image  in  the  glass  could  not  be  superposed  to  the 
reality.  Even  the  movement  of  solar  life  is  dissymmetrical. 
A  luminous  ray  never  strikes  in  a  straight  line  the  leaf  where 
vegetable  life  creates  organic  matter.  Terrestrial  magnetism, 
the  opposition  which  exists  between  the  north  and  south  poles 
in  a  magnet,  that  offered  us  by  the  two  electricities  positive 
and  negative,  are  but  resultants  from  dissymmetrical  actions 
and  movements." 

"Life,"  he  said  again,  "is  dominated  by  dissymmetrical 
actions.  I  can  even  foresee  that  all  living  species  are  primor- 
dially,  in  their  structure,  in  their  external  forms,  functions  of 
cosmic  dissymmetry." 

And  there  appeared  to  him  to  be  a  barrier  between  mineral 
or  artificial  products  and  products  formed  under  the  influence 


1850— 1854  73 

of  life.  But  he  did  not  look  upon  it  as- an  impassable  one,  and 
he  was  careful  to  say,  "It  is  a  distinction  of  fact  and  not  of 
absolute  principle."  As  nature  elaborates  immediate  principles 
of  life  by  means  of  dissymmetrical  forces,  he  wished  that  the 
chemist  should  imitate  nature,  and  that,  breaking  with  methods 
founded  upon  the  exclusive  use  of  symmetrical  forces ,  he  should 
bring  dissymmetrical  forces  to  bear  upon  the  production  of  chem- 
ical phenomena.  He  himself,  after  using  powerful  magnets  to 
attempt  to  introduce  a  manifestation  of  dissymmetry  into  the 
form  of  crystals,  had  had  a  strong  clockwork  movement 
constructed,  the  object  of  which  was  to  keep  a  plant  in 
continual  rotatory  motion  first  in  one  direction  then  in  another. 
He  also  proposed  to  try  to  keep  a  plant  alive ,  from  its  germina- 
tion under  the  influence  of  solar  rays  reversed  by  means  of  a 
mirror  directed  by  a  heliostat. 

But  Biot  wrote  to  him  :  "I  should  like  to  be  able  to  turn 
you  from  the  attempts  you  wish  to  make  on  the  influence  of 
magnetism  on  vegetation.  M.  de  Senarmont  agrees  with  me. 
To  begin  with,  you  will  spend  a  great  deal  on  the  purchase  of 
instruments  with  the  use  of  which  you  are  not  familiar,  and  of 
which  the  success  is  very  doubtful.  They  will  take  you  away 
from  the  fruitful  course  of  experimental  researches  which  you 
have  followed  hitherto,  where  there  is  yet  so  much  for  you  to  do, 
and  will  lead  you  from  the  certain  to  the  uncertain." 

"Louis  is  rather  too  preoccupied  with  his  experiments," 
wrote  Mme.  Pasteur  to  her  father-in-law;  "you  know  that 
those  he  is  undertaking  this  year  will  give  us,  if  they  succeed, 
a  Newton  or  a  Galileo." 

But  success  did  not  come.  "  My  studies  are  going  rather 
badly,"  wrote  Pasteur  in  his  turn  (December  30).  "I  am 
almost  afraid  of  failing  in  all  my  endeavours  this  year,  and 
of  having  no  important  achievement  to  record  by  the  end  of 
next  year.  I  am  still  hoping,  though  I  suppose  it  was  rather 
mad  to  undertake  what  1  have  undertaken." 

Whilst  he  was  thus  struggling,  an  experiment,  which  for 
others  would  have  been  a  mere  chemical  curiosity,  interested 
him  passionately.  Eecalling  one  day  how  his  first  researches 
had  led  him  to  the  study  of  ferments  :  "  If  I  place,"  he  said, 
"  one  of  the  salts  of  racemic  acid,  paratartrate  or  racemate  of 
ammonia,  for  instance,  in  the  ordinary  conditions  of  fermenta- 
tion, the  dextro-tartaric  acid  alone  ferments,  the  other  remains 
in  the  liquor.     I  may  say,  in  passing,  that  this  is  the  best  means 


74  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

of  preparing  laevo-tartaric  acid.  Why  does  the  dextro-tartaric 
acid  alone  become  putrefied?  Because  the  ferments  of  that 
fermentation  feed  more  easily  on  the  right  than  on  the  left 
molecules." 

"  I  have  done  yet  more,"  he  said  much  later,  in  a  last  lecture 
to  the  Chemical  Society  of  Paris  ;  "  I  have  kept  alive  some  little 
seeds  of  penicillium  glaucum — that  mucor  v^hich  is  to  be  found 
everywhere — on  the  surface  of  ashes  and  paratartaric  acid 
and  I  have  seen  the  laevo-tartaric  acid  appear  ..." 

What  seemed  to  him  startling  in  those  two  experiments  was 
to  find  molecular  dissymmetry  appear  as  a  modifying  agent 
on  chemical  affinities  in  a  phenomenon  of  the  physiological 
order. 

By  an  interesting  coincidence  it  was  at  the  very  moment 
when  his  studies  were  bringing  him  towards  fermentations 
that  he  was  called  to  a  country  where  the  local  industry  was 
to  be  the  strongest  stimulant  to  his  new  researches. 


CHAPTER  lY 
1855—1859 

In  September,  1854,  he  was  made  Professor  and  Dean  of 
the  new  Faculte  des  Sciences  at  Lille.  ''I  need  not,  Sir," 
wrote  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  M.  Fortoul,  in  a 
letter  where  private  feelings  were  mixed  with  official  solemnity, 
' '  recall  to  your  mind  the  importance  which  is  attached  to  the 
success  of  this  new  Faculty  of  Science,  situated  in  a  town  which 
is  the  richest  centre  of  industrial  activity  in  the  north  of  France. 
By  giving  you  the  direction  of  it ,  I  show  the  entire  confidence 
which  I  have  placed  in  you.  I  am  convinced  that  you  will 
fulfil  the  hopes  which  I  have  founded  upon  your  zeal." 

Built  at  the  expense  of  the  town,  the  Faculte  was  sit- 
uated in  the  Rue  des  Fleurs.  In  the  opening  speech 
which  he  pronounced  on  December  7,  1854,  the  young 
Dean  expressed  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Imperial  decree 
of  August  22,  which  brought  two  happy  innovations  into  the 
Faculties  of  Science  :  (1)  The  pupils  might,  for  a  small  annual 
sum,  enter  the  laboratory  and  practise  the  principal  experi- 
ments carried  out  before  them  at  the  classes ;  and  (2)  a  new 
diploma  was  created.  After  two  years  of  practical  and  theoret- 
ical study  the  young  men  who  wished  to  enter  an  industrial 
career  could  obtain  this  special  diploma  and  be  chosen  as  fore- 
men or  overseers.  Pasteur  was  overjoyed  at  being  able  to  do 
useful  work  in  that  country  of  distilleries,  and  to  attract  large 
audiences  to  the  new  Faculty.  "  Where  in  your  families  will 
you  find,"  he  said,  to  excite  indolent  minds — "where  will  you 
find  a  young  man  whose  curiosity  and  interest  will  not  imme- 
diately be  awakened  when  you  put  into  his  hands  a  potato, 
when  with  that  potato  he  may  produce  sugar,  with  that  sugar 
alcohol,  with  that  alcohol  sether  and  vinegar?  Where  is  he 
that  will  not  be  happy  to  tell  his  family  in  the  evening  that  he 
has  just  been  working  out  an  electric  telegraph?  And,  gentle- 
men, be  convinced  of  this,  such  studies  are  seldom  if  ever 
forgotten.     It  is  somewhat  as  if  geography  were  to  be  taught 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

by  travelling ;  such  geography  is  remembered  because  one  has 
seen  the  places.  In  the  same  way  your  sons  will  not  forget 
what  the  air  we  breathe  contains  when  they  have  once  analysed 
it,  when  in  their  hands  and  under  their  eyes  the  admirable 
properties  of  its  elements  have  been  resolved." 

After  stating  his  wish  to  be  directly  useful  to  these  sons  of 
manufacturers  and  to  put  his  laboratory  at  their  disposal,  he 
eloquently  upheld  the  rights  of  theory  in  teaching — 

"  Without  theory,  practice  is  but  routine  born  of  habit. 
Theory  alone  can  bring  forth  and  develop  the  spirit  of  inven- 
tion. It  is  to  you  specially  that  it  will  belong  not  to  share  the 
opinion  of  those  narrow  minds  who  disdain  everything  in 
science  which  has  not  an  immediate  application.  You  know 
Franklin's  charming  saying?  He  was  witnessing  the  first 
demonstration  of  a  purely  scientific  discovery,  and  people 
round  him  said  :  '  But  what  is  the  use  of  it?  '  Franklin 
answered  them  :  '  What  is  the  use  of  a  new-born  child?  ' 
Yes,  gentlemen,  what  is  the  use  of  a  new-born  child?  And 
yet,  perhaps,  at  that  tender  age,  germs  already  existed  in  you 
of  the  talents  which  distinguish  you  !  In  your  baby  boy^, 
fragile  beings  as  they  are,  there  are  incipient  magistrates, 
scientists,  heroes  as  valiant  as  those  who  are  now  covering 
themselves  with  glory  under  the  walls  of  Sebastopol.  And 
thus,  gentlemen,  a  theoretical  discovery  has  but  the  merit  of 
its  existence  :  it  awakens  hope,  and  that  is  all.  But  let  it  be 
cultivated,  let  it  grow,  and  you  will  see  what  it  will  become. 

"Do  you  know  when  it  first  saw  the  light,  this  electric 
telegraph,  one  of  the  most  marvellous  applications  of  modern 
science?  It  was  in  that  memorable  year,  1822  :  Oersted,  a 
Danish  physicist,  held  in  his  hands  a  piece  of  copper  wire, 
joined  by  its  extremities  to  the  two  poles  of  a  Volta  pile.  On 
his  table  was  a  magnetized  needle  on  its  pivot,  and  he  suddenly 
saw  (by  chance  you  will  say,  but  chance  only  favours  the  mind 
which  is  prepared)  the  needle  move  and  take  up  a  position 
quite  different  from  the  one  assigned  to  it  by  terrestrial  mag- 
netism. A  wire  carrying  an  electric  current  deviates  a  mag- 
netized needle  from  its  position.  That,  gentlemen,  was  the 
birth  of  the  modern  telegraph.  Franklin's  interlocutor  might 
well  have  said  when  the  needle  moved  :  '  But  what  is  the  use 
of  that?  '  And  yet  that  discovery  was  barely  twenty  years  old 
when  it  produced  by  its  application  the  almost  supernatural 
effects  of  the  electric  telegraph  !  ' ' 


1855—1859  77 

The  small  theatre  where  Pasteur  gave  his  chemistry  lessons 
soon  became  celebrated  in  the  students'  world. 

The  faults  had  disappeared  with  which  Pasteur  used  to 
reproach  himself  when  he  first  taught  at  Dijon  and  later  at 
Strasburg.  He  was  sure  of  himself,  he  was  clear  in  his  ex- 
planations;  the  chain  of  thought,  the  fitness  of  words,  all  was 
perfect.  He  made  few  experiments,  but  those  were  decisive. 
He  endeavoured  to  bring  out  every  observation  or  comparison 
they  might  suggest.  The  pupil  who  went  away  delighted 
from  the  class  did  not  suspect  the  care  each  of  those  apparently 
easy  lessons  had  cost.  When  Pasteur  had  carefully  prepared 
all  his  notes ,  he  used  to  make  a  summary  of  them ;  he  had 
these  summaries  bound  together  afterwards.  We  may  thus 
sketch  the  outline  of  his  work ;  but  who  will  paint  the  gesture 
of  demonstration,  the  movement,  the  grave  penetrating  voice, 
the  life  in  short? 

After  a  few  months  the  Minister  wrote  to  M.  Guillemin,  the 
rector,  that  he  was  much  pleased  with  the  success  of  this 
Faculty  of  Sciences  at  Lille,  "which  already  owes  it  to  the 
merit  of  the  teaching— solid  and  brilliant  at  the  same  time — 
of  that  clever  Professor,  that  it  is  able  to  rival  the  most 
flourishing  Faculties."  The  Minister  felt  he  must  add  some 
official  advice:  "But  M.  Pasteur  must  guard  against  being 
carried  away  by  his  love  for  science,  and  he  must  not  forget 
that  the  teaching  of  the  Faculties,  whilst  keeping  up  with 
scientific  theory,  should,  in  order  to  produce  useful  and  far- 
reaching  results,  appropriate  to  itself  the  special  applications 
suitable  to  the  real  wants  of  the  surrounding  country." 

A  year  after  the  inauguration  of  the  new  Faculty,  Pasteur 
wrote  to  Chappuis  :  ' '  Our  classes  are  very  well  attended ;  I 
have  250  to  300  people  at  my  most  popular  lectures,  and  we 
have  twenty-one  pupils  entered  for  laboratory  experiments. 
I  believe  that  this  year,  like  last  year,  Lille  holds  the  first 
rank  for  that  innovation,  for  I  am  told  that  at  Lyons  there 
were  but  eight  entries."  It  was  indeed  a  success  to  distance 
Lyons.  "The  zeal  of  all  is  a  pleasure  to  watch  (January, 
1856).  It  reaches  that  point  that  four  of  the  professors  take 
the  trouble  to  have  their  manuscript  lessons  printed ;  there 
are  already  120  subscribers  for  the  course  of  applied  mechanics. 
"Our  building  is  fortunately  completed;  it  is  large  and 
handsome,  but  will  soon  become  insufficient  owing  to  the 
progress  of  practical  teaching. 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

"  We  are  very  comfortably  settled  on  the  first  floor,  and  1 
have  (on  the  ground  floor  immediately  below)  what  I  have 
always  wished  for,  a  laboratory  where  I  can  go  at  any  time. 
This  week,  for  instance,  the  gas  remains  on,  and  operations 
follow  their  course  whilst  I  am  in  bed.  In  this  way  I  try  to 
make  up  a  little  of  the  time  which  I  have  to  give  to  the  direc- 
tion of  all  the  rather  numerous  departments  in  our  Faculties. 
Add  to  this  that  I  am  a  member  of  two  very  active  societies, 
and  that  I  have  been  entrusted,  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
Conseil-General,^  with  the  testing  of  manures  for  the  departe- 
ment  of  the  Nord,  a  considerable  work  in  this  rich  agricultural 
land,  but  one  which  I  have  accepted  eagerly,  so  as  to  popularize 
and  enlarge  the  influence  of  our  young  Faculty. 

"  Do  not  fear  lest  all  this  should  keep  me  from  the  studies 
I  love.  I  shall  not  give  them  up,  and  I  trust  that  what  is 
already  accomplished  will  grow  without  my  help,  with  the 
growth  that  time  gives  to  everything  that  has  within  it  the 
germ  of  life.  Let  us  all  work ;  that  only  is  enjoyable.  I 
am  quoting  M.  Biot,  who  certainly  is  an  authority  on  that 
subject.  You  saw  the  share  he  took  the  other  day  in  a  great 
discussion  at  the  Academic  des  Sciences  ;  his  presence  of  mind, 
high  reasoning  powers,  and  youthfulness  were  magnificent, 
and  he  is  eighty-four !  " 

In  a  mere  study  on  Pasteur  as  a  scientific  man,  the  way 
in  which  he  understood  his  duties  as  Dean  would  only  be  a 
secondary  detail.  It  is  not  so  here,  the  very  object  of  this 
book  being  to  paint  what  he  was  in  all  the  circumstances, 
all  the  trials  of  life.  Besides  his  professional  obligations, 
his  kindness  in  leaving  his  laboratory,  however  hard  the  sacri- 
fice, bears  witness  to  an  ever  present  devotion.  For  instance, 
he  took  his  pupils  round  factories  and  foundries  at  Aniche, 
Denain,  Valenciennes,  St.  Omer.  In  July,  1856,  he  organized 
for  the  same  pupils  a  tour  in  Belgium.  He  took  them  to  visit 
factories,  iron  foundries,  steel  and  metal  works,  questioning 
the  foremen  with  his  insatiable  curiosity,  pleased  to  induce  in 
his  tall  students  a  desire  to  learn.  All  returned  from  these 
trips  with  more  pleasure  in  their  work ;  some  with  the  fiery 
enthusiasm  that  Pasteur  wished  to  see. 

'  Conseil-Genernl  de  departement.  A  representative  assembly  for  the 
general  management  of  each  departement,  somewhat  similar  to  the 
County  Councils  in  England.     [Trans.] 


1855—1859  79 

The  sentence  in  his  Lille  speech,  "  in  the  fields  of  observa- 
tion, chance  only  favours  the  mind  which  is  prepared,"  was 
particularly  applicable  to  him.  In  the  summer  of  1856  a 
Lille  manufacturer,  M.  Bigo,  had,  like  many  others  that  same 
year,  met  with  great  disappointments  in  the  manufacture  of 
beetroot  alcohol.  He  came  to  the  young  Dean  for  advice. 
The  prospect  of  doing  a  kindness,  of  communicating  the  results 
of  his  observations  to  the  numerous  hearers  who  crowded  the 
small  theatre  of  the  Faculty,  and  of  closely  studying  the  pheno- 
mena of  fermentation  which  preoccupied  him  to  such  a  degree, 
caused  Pasteur  to  consent  to  make  some  experiments.  He 
spent  some  time  almost  daily  at  the  factory.  On  his  return 
to  his  laboratory — where  he  only  had  a  student's  microscope 
and  a  most  primitive  coke-fed  stove — he  examined  the  globules 
in  the  fermentation  juice,  he  compared  filtered  with  non- 
filtered  beetroot  juice,  and  conceived  stimulating  hypotheses 
often  to  be  abandoned  in  face  of  a  fact  in  contradiction  with 
them.  Above  some  note  made  a  few  days  previously,  where 
a  suggested  hypothesis  had  not  been  verified  by  fact,  he  would 
write:  "error,"  "erroneous,"  for  he  was  implacable  in  his 
criticism  of  himself. 

M.  Bigo's  son,  who  studied  in  Pasteur's  laboratory,  has 
summed  up  in  a  letter  how  these  accidents  of  manufacture 
became  a  starting  point  to  Pasteur's  investigations  on  fer- 
mentation, particularly  alcoholic  fermentation.  "  Pasteur 
had  noticed  through  the  microscope  that  the  globules  were 
round  when  fermentation  was  healthy,  that  they  lengthened 
when  alteration  began,  and  were  quite  long  when  fermen- 
tation became  lactic.  This  very  simple  method  allowed  us 
to  watch  the  process  and  to  avoid  the  failures  in  fermentation 
which  we  used  so  often  to  meet  with.  ...  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  be  many  times  the  confidant  of  the  enthusiasms 
and  disappointments  of  a  great  man  of  science."  Young 
Bigo  indeed  remembered  the  series  of  experiments,  the 
numerous  observations  noted,  and  how  Pasteur,  whilst  study- 
ing the  causes  of  those  failures  in  the  distillery,  had  wondered 
whether  he  was  not  confronted  with  a  general  fact,  common 
to  all  fermentations.  Pasteur  was  on  the  road  to  a  discovery 
the  consequences  of  which  were  to  revolutionize  chemistry. 
During  months  and  months  he  worked  to  assure  himself  that 
he  was  not  a  prey  to  error. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  importance  of  the  ideas  which 


80  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

from  that  small  laboratory  were  about  to  inundate  the  world, 
and  in  order  to  take  account  of  the  effort  necessitated  to  obtain 
the  triumph  of  a  theory  which  was  to  become  a  doctrine,  it  is 
necessary  to  go  back  to  the  teachings  of  that  time  upon  the 
subject  of  fermentations.  All  was  darkness,  pierced  in  1836 
by  a  momentary  ray  of  light.  The  physicist  Cagniard-Latour, 
studying  the  ferment  of  beer  called  yeast,  had  observed  that 
that  ferment  was  composed  of  cells  "  susceptible  of  reproduc- 
tion by  a  sort  of  budding,  and  probably  acting  on  sugar 
through  some  effect  of  their  vegetation."  Almost  at  the  same 
time  the  German  doctor  Schwann  was  making  analogous 
observations.  However,  as  the  fact  seemed  isolated,  nothing 
similar  being  met  with  elsewhere,  Cagniard-Latour's  remark 
was  but  a  curious  parenthesis  in  the  history  of  fermentations. 

When  such  men  as  J.  B.  Dumas  said  that  perhaps  there 
might  be  a  sequel  to  Cagniard-Latour's  statement,  they 
emitted  the  idea  so  timidly  that,  in  a  book  On  Contagion 
published  at  Montpellier  in  1853,  Anglada,  the  well  known 
author,  expressed  himself  thus — 

"  M.  Dumas,  who  is  an  authority,  looks  upon  the  act  of 
fermentation  as  strange  and  obscure  ;  he  declares  that  it  gives 
rise  to  phenomena  the  knowledge  of  which  is  only  tentative  at 
present.  Such  a  competent  affirmation  is  of  a  nature  to  dis- 
courage those  who  claim  to  unravel  the  mysteries  of  contagion 
by  the  comparative  study  of  fermentation.  What  is  the 
advantage  of  explaining  one  through  the  other  since  both  are 
equally  mysterious!  "  This  word,  obscure,  was  to  be  found 
everywhere.  Claude  Bernard  used  the  same  epithet  at  the 
College  de  France  in  March,  1850,  to  qualify  those  phenomena. 

Four  months  before  the  request  of  the  Lille  manufacturer, 
Pasteur  himself,  preparing  on  a  loose  sheet  of  paper  a  lesson 
on  fermentation,  had  written  these  words  :  "  What  does  fer- 
mentation consist  of? — Mysterious  character  of  the  phe- 
nomenon.— A  word  on  lactic  acid."  Did  he  speak  in  that 
lesson  of  his  ideas  of  future  experiments?  Did  he  insist  upon 
the  mystery  he  intended  to  unveil?  With  his  powers  of  con- 
centration it  is  probable  that  he  restrained  himself  and  decided 
to  wait  another  year. 

The  theories  of  Berzelius  and  of  Liebig  then  reigned 
supreme.  To  the  mind  of  Berzelius,  the  Swedish  chemist, 
fermentation  was  due  to  contact.  It  was  said  that  there 
was  a  catalytic  force.     In  his  opinion,  what  Cagniard-Latour 


1855—1859  81 

believed  he  had  seen,  was  but  "an  immediate  vegetable 
principle,  which  became  precipitated  during  the  fermentation 
of  beer,  and  which,  in  precipitating,  presented  forms  analogous 
to  the  simpler  forms  of  vegetable  life,  but  formation  does  not 
constitute  life." 

In  the  view  of  the  German  chemist  Liebig,  chemical 
decomposition  was  produced  by  influence  :  the  ferment  was 
an  extremely  alterable  organic  substance  which  decomposed, 
and  in  decomposing  set  in  motion,  by  the  rupture  of  its  own 
elements,  the  molecules  of  the  fermentative  matter ;  it  was  the 
dead  portion  of  the  yeast,  that  which  had  lived  and  was  being 
altered,  which  acted  upon  the  sugar.  These  theories  were 
adopted,  taught,  and  to  be  found  in  all  treatises  on  chemistry. 

A  vacancy  at  the  Academie  des  Sciences  took  Pasteur  away 
from  his  students  for  a  time  and  obliged  him  to  go  to  Paris. 
Biot,  Dumas,  Balard  and  Senarmont  had  insisted  upon  his 
presenting  himself  in  the  section  of  mineralogy.  He  felt 
himself  unfit  for  the  candidature.  He  was  as  incapable  of 
election  manoeuvres  as  he  was  full  of  his  subject  when  he  had  to 
convince  an  interlocutor  or  to  interest  an  audience  in  his  works 
on  crystallography.  (These  works  had  just  procured  the 
bestowal  on  him  of  the  great  Eumford  medal,  conferred  by  the 
London  Eoyal  Society.)  During  this  detested  canvassing 
campaign  he  had  one  happy  day  :  he  was  present  on  February 
5, 1857,  at  the  reception  of  Biot  by  the  Academie  Frangaise. 

Biot,  who  had  entered  the  Academie  des  Sciences  fifty-four 
years  earlier,  and  was  now  the  oldest  member  of  the  Institute, 
took  advantage  of  his  great  age  to  distribute,  in  the  course  of 
his  speech,  a  good  deal  of  wise  counsel,  much  applauded  by 
Pasteur  from  the  ranks  of  the  audience.  Biot,  with  his  calm 
irony,  aimed  this  epigram  at  men  of  science  who  disdained 
letters  :  "  Their  science  was  not  the  more  apparent  through 
their  want  of  literary  culture."  Pie  ended  by  remarks  which 
formed  a  continuation  of  his  last  letter  to  Pasteur's  father. 
Making  an  appeal  to  those  whose  high  ambition  is  to  conse- 
crate themselves  to  pure  science,  he  proudly  said  :  "Perhaps 
your  name,  your  existence  will  be  unknown  to  the  crowd.  But 
you  will  be  known,  esteemed,  sought  after  by  a  small  number 
of  eminent  men  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  earth ,  your  rivals , 
your  peers  in  the  intellectual  Senate  of  minds  ;  they  alone  have 
the  right  to  appreciate  you  and  to  assign  to  you  your  rank, 

G 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

a  well-merited  rank,  which  no  princely  will,  no  popular  caprice 
can  give  or  take  away,  and  which  will  remain  yours  as  long 
as  you  remain  faithful  to  Science,  which  bestows  it  upon  you." 

Guizot,  to  whom  it  fell  to  welcome  Biot  to  the  Academic, 
rendered  homage  to  his  independence,  to  his  worship  of  dis- 
interested research,  to  his  ready  counsels.  "  The  events  which 
have  overturned  everything  around  you,"  he  said,  "  have  never 
turned  the  course  of  your  free  and  firm  judgment,  or  of  your 
peaceful  labours."  On  that  occasion  the  decline  of  Biot's  life 
seemed  like  a  beautiful  summer  evening  in  the  north,  before 
nightfall,  when  a  soft  light  still  envelops  all  things.  No 
disciple  ever  felt  more  emotion  than  Pasteur  when  participating 
in  that  last  joy  of  his  aged  master.  In  Eegnault's  laboratory,  a 
photograph  had  been  taken  of  Biot  seated  with  bent  head  and 
a  weary  attitude,  but  with  the  old  sparkle  in  his  eyes.  Biot 
offered  it  to  Pasteur,  saying  :  "  If  you  place  this  proof  near  a 
portrait  of  your  father,  you  will  unite  the  pictures  of  two  men 
who  have  loved  you  very  much  in  the  same  way." 

Pasteur,  between  two  canvassing  visits,  gave  himself  the 
pleasure  of  going  to  hear  a  young  professor  that  every  one  was 
then  speaking  of.  "I  have  just  been  to  a  lecture  by  Kigault, 
at  the  College  de  France,"  he  wrote  on  March  6,  1857.  "  The 
room  is  too  small,  it  is  a  struggle  to  get  in.  I  have  come  away 
delighted;  it  is  a  splendid  success  for  the  Universite,  there  is 
nothing  to  add,  nothing  to  retrench.  Fancy  a  professor  in  one 
of  the  Paris  lycees  making  such  a  debut  at  the  College  de 
France  ! ' ' 

Pasteur  preferred  Eigault  to  St.  Marc  Girardin.  "  And 
Eigault  is  only  beginning!"  But,  under  Eigault's  elegance 
and  apparent  ease,  lurked  perpetual  constraint.  One  day  that 
St.  Marc  Girardin  was  congratulating  him,  "  Ah,"  said 
Eigault,  "  you  do  not  see  the  steel  corsets  that  I  wear  when  I 
am  speaking  !"  That  comparison  suited  his  delicate,  ingenious, 
slightly  artificial  mind,  never  unrestrained  even  in  simple 
conversation,  at  the  same  time  conscientious  and  self-conscious. 
He  who  had  once  written  that  ' '  Life  is  a  work  of  art  to  be 
fashioned  by  a  skilful  hand  if  the  faculties  of  the  mind  are  to 
be  fully  enjoyed,"  made  the  mistake  of  forcing  his  nature.  He 
died  a  few  months  after  that  lecture. 

Pasteur's  enthusiastic  Hues  about  Eigault  show  the  joy  he  felt 
at  the  success  of  others.  He  did  not  understand  envy,  ill-will, 
or  jealousy,  and  was  more  than  astonished,  indeed  amazed, 


1855—1859  83 

when  he  came  across  such  feelings.  One  day  that  he  had  read  an 
important  paper  at  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  "Would  you 
believe  it,"  he  wrote  to  his  father,  "  I  met  a  Paris  Professor  of 
chemistry  the  very  next  day,  whom  I  know  to  have  been  present, 
who  had  indeed  come  purposely  to  hear  my  reading,  and  he 
never  said  a  word  !  I  then  remembered  a  saying  of  M.  Biot's  : 
*  When  a  colleague  reads  a  paper  and  no  one  speaks  to  him 
about  it  afterwards,  it  is  because  it  has  been  thought  well 
of.   .   .   .'" 

The  election  was  at  hand.  Pasteur  wrote  (March  11)  : 
"  My  dear  father,  I  am  certain  to  fail."  He  thought  he  might 
count  upon  twenty  votes ;  thirty  were  necessary.  He  resigned 
himself  philosophically.  His  candidature  would  at  any  rate 
bring  his  works  into  greater  prominence.  In  spite  of  a  splendid 
report  by  Senarmont,  enumerating  the  successive  steps  by 
which  Pasteur  had  risen  since  his  first  discoveries  concerning 
the  connection  between  internal  structure  and  external 
crystalline  forms,  Pasteur  only  obtained  sixteen  votes. 

On  his  return  to  Lille  he  set  to  work  with  renewed  energy ; 
he  took  up  again  his  study  of  fermentations,  and  in  particular 
that  of  sour  milk,  called  lactic  fermentation ;  he  made  notes  of 
his  experiments  day  by  day ;  he  drew  in  a  notebook  the  little 
globules,  the  tiny  bodies  that  he  found  in  a  grey  substance 
sometimes  aranged  in  a  zone.  Those  globules,  much  smaller 
than  those  of  yeast,  had  escaped  the  observation  of  chemists 
and  naturalists  because  it  was  easy  to  confound  them  with  other 
products  of  lactic  fermentation.  After  isolating  and  then 
scattering  in  a  liquid  a  trace  of  that  grey  substance,  Pasteur  saw 
some  well-characterized  lactic  fermentation  appear.  That 
matter,  that  grey  substance  was  indeed  the  ferment. 

Whilst  all  the  writings  of  the  chemists  who  followed  in  the 
train  of  Liebig  and  Berzelius  united  in  rejecting  the  idea  of  an 
influence  of  life  in  the  cause  of  fermentations,  Pasteur  recog- 
nized therein  a  phenomenon  correlative  to  life.  That  special 
lactic  yeast,  Pasteur  could  see  budding,  multiplying,  and  offer- 
ing the  same  phenomena  of  reproduction  as  beer  yeast. 

It  was  not  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  as  is  generally 
believed,  that  Pasteur  sent  the  paper  on  lactic  fermentation,  the 
fifteen  pages  of  which  contained  such  curious  and  unexpected 
facts.  With  much  delicacy  of  feeling,  Pasteur  made  to  the 
Lille  Scientific  Society  this  communication  (August,  1857) 
which  the  Academic  des  Sciences  only  saw  three  months  later. 

G  2 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

How  was  it  that  he  desired  to  leave  this  Faculty  at  Lille  to 
which  he  had  rendered  such  valuable  service?  The  Ecole 
Normale  was  going  through  difficult  times.  "  In  my  opinion," 
wrote  Pasteur  with  a  sadness  that  betrayed  his  attachment 
to  the  great  school,  "of  all  the  objects  of  care  to  the  authorities, 
the  Ecole  Normale  should  be  the  first ;  it  is  now  but  the  shadow 
of  its  former  self."  He  who  so  often  said,  "  Do  not  dwell  upon 
things  already  acquired  !  ' '  thought  that  the  Lille  Faculty  was 
henceforth  sure  of  its  future  and  needed  him  no  longer.  Was  it 
not  better  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  the  threatened  weak 
point?  At  the  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  his  wish  was 
understood  and  approved  of.  Nisard  had  just  been  made  Di- 
rector of  the  Ecole  Normale  with  high  and  supreme  powers ;  his 
sub-director  of  literary  studies  was  M.  Jacquinet.  The  adminis- 
tration was  reserved  for  Pasteur,  who  was  also  entrusted  with 
the  direction  of  the  scientific  studies.  To  that  task  were  added 
"the  surveillance  of  the  economic  and  hygienic  management, 
the  care  of  general  discipline,  intercourse  with  the  families  of 
the  pupils  and  the  literary  or  scientific  establishments  fre- 
quented by  them." 

The  rector  of  the  Lille  Faculty  announced  in  these  terms 
the  departure  of  the  Dean  :  ' '  Our  Faculty  loses  a  professor  and 
a  scientist  of  the  very  first  order.  You  have  yourselves,  gentle- 
men, been  able  to  appreciate  more  than  once  all  the  vigour  and 
clearness  of  that  mind  at  once  so  powerful  and  so  capable." 

At  the  Ecole  Normale,  Pasteur's  labours  were  not  at  first 
seconded  by  material  convenience.  The  only  laboratory  in 
the  Rue  d'Ulm  building  was  occupied  by  Henri  Sainte  Claire 
Deville  who,  in  1851,  had  taken  the  place  of  Balard,  the  latter 
leaving  the  Ecole  Normale  for  the  College  de  France.  Dark 
rooms,  a  very  few  instruments,  and  a  credit  of  1,800  francs  a 
year,  that  was  all  Sainte  Claire  Deville  had  been  able  to  obtain. 
It  would  have  seemed  like  a  dream  to  Pasteur.  He  had  to 
organize  his  scientific  installation  in  two  attics  under  the  roof  of 
the  Ecole  Normale  ;  he  had  no  assistance  of  any  kind,  not  even 
that  of  an  ordinary  laboratory  attendant.  But  his  courage  was 
not  of  the  kind  which  evaporates  at  the  first  obstacle,  and  no 
difficulty  could  have  kept  him  from  work  :  he  climbed  the  stairs 
leading  to  his  pseudo-laboratory  with  all  the  cheerfulness  of  a 
soldier's  son.  Biot — who  had  been  grieved  to  see  the  chemist 
Laurent  working  in  a  sort  of  cellar,  where  that  scientist's  health 
suffered  (he  died  at  forty-three) — was  angry  that  Pasteur  should 


1855—1859  85 

be  relegated  to  an  uninhabitable  garret.  Neither  did  he  under- 
stand the  ' '  economic  and  hygienic  surveillance  ' '  attributed  to 
Pasteur.  He  hoped  Pasteur  would  reduce  to  their  just  propor- 
tions those  secondary  duties.  "  They  have  made  him  an  ad- 
ministrator," he  said  with  mock  pomposity;  "let  them 
believe  that  he  will  administrate."  Biot  was  mistaken.  The 
de  minimis  non  curat  did  not  exist  for  Pasteur, 

On  one  of  his  agenda  leaves,  besides  subjects  for  lectures,  we 
find  notes  such  as  these  :  ' '  Catering ;  ascertain  what  weight  of 
meat  per  pupil  is  given  out  at  the  Ecole  Poly  technique.  Court- 
yard to  be  strewn  with  sand.  Ventilation  of  classroom.  Dining 
hall  door  to  be  repaired."  Each  detail  was  of  importance  in  his 
eyes,  when  the  health  of  the  students  was  in  question. 

He  inaugurated  his  garret  by  some  work  almost  as  celebrated 
as  that  on  lactic  fermentation.  In  December,  1857,  he  pre- 
sented to  the  Academic  des  Sciences  a  paper  on  alcoholic 
fermentation.  "I  have  submitted,"  he  said,  "alcoholic  fer- 
mentation to  the  method  of  experimentation  indicated  in  the 
notes  which  I  recently  had  the  honour  of  presenting  to  the 
Academic.  The  results  of  those  labours  should  be  put  on  the 
same  lines,  for  they  explain  and  complete  each  other."  And 
in  conclusion  :  "  The  deduplication  of  sugar  into  alcohol  and 
carbonic  acid  is  correlative  to  a  phenomenon  of  life,  an  organiza- 
tion of  globules  ..." 

The  reports  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences  for  1858  show  how 
Pasteur  recognized  complex  phenomena  in  alcoholic  fermenta- 
tion. Whilst  chemists  were  content  to  say  :  "  So  much  sugar 
gives  so  much  alcohol  and  so  much  carbonic  acid,"  Pasteur 
went  further.  He  wrote  to  Chappuis  in  June  :  "I  find  that 
alcoholic  fermentation  is  constantly  accompanied  by  the  produc- 
tion of  glycerine  ;  it  is  a  very  curious  fact.  For  instance,  in  one 
litre  of  wine  there  are  several  grammes  of  that  product  which 
had  not  been  suspected."  Shortly  before  that  he  had  also  recog- 
nized the  normal  presence  in  alcoholic  fermentation  of  succinic 
acid.  "  I  should  be  pursuing  the  consequences  of  these  facts," 
he  added,  "  if  a  temperature  of  36°  C.  did  not  keep  me  from  my 
laboratory.  I  regret  to  see  the  longest  days  in  the  year  lost  to 
me.  Yet  I  have  grown  accustomed  to  my  attic,  and  I  should  be 
sorry  to  leave  it.  Next  holidays  I  hope  to  enlarge  it.  You  too 
are  struggling  against  material  hindrances  in  your  work ;  let  it 
stimulate  us,  my  dear  fellow,  and  not  discourage  us.  Our  dis- 
coveries will  have  the  greater  merit." 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

The  year  1859  was  given  up  to  examining  further  facts 
concerning  fermentation.  Whence  came  those  ferments, 
those  microscopic  bodies,  those  transforming  agents,  so  weak  in 
appearance,  so  powerful  in  reahty?  Great  problems  were 
working  in  his  mind ;  but  he  was  careful  not  to  propound  them 
hastily,  for  he  was  the  most  timid,  the  most  hesitating  of  men 
until  he  held  proofs  in  his  hands.  "  In  experimental  science," 
he  wrote,  "  it  is  always  a  mistake  not  to  doubt  when  facts  do  not 
compel  you  to  affirm." 

In  September  he  lost  his  eldest  daughter.  She  died  of 
typhoid  fever  at  Arbois,  where  she  was  staying  with  her  grand- 
father. On  December  30  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  father:  "I 
cannot  keep  my  thoughts  from  my  poor  little  girl,  so  good,  so 
happy  in  her  little  life,  whom  this  fatal  year  now  ending  has 
taken  away  from  us.  She  was  growing  to  be  such  a  com- 
panion to  her  mother  and  to  me,  to  us  all.  ,  .  .  But  forgive 
me,  dearest  father,  for  recalling  these  sad  memories.  She  is 
happy ;  let  us  think  of  those  who  remain  and  try  as  much  as 
lies  in  our  power  to  keep  from  them  the  bitterness  of  this  life." 


CHAPTER  V 
1860—1864 

On  January  30,  1860,  the  Academie  des  Sciences  conferred 
on  Pasteur  the  Prize  for  Experimental  Physiology.  Claude 
Bernard,  who  drew  up  the  report,  recalled  how  much  Pasteur's 
experiments  in  alcoholic  fermentation,  lactic  fermentation,  the 
fermentation  of  tartaric  acid,  had  been  appreciated  by  the 
Academie.  He  dwelt  upon  the  great  physiological  interest  of 
the  results  obtained.  "It  is,"  he  concluded,  "by  reason  of 
that  physiological  tendency  in  Pasteur's  researches,  that  the 
Commission  has  unanimously  selected  him  for  the  1859  Prize 
for  Experimental  Physiology." 

That  same  January,  Pasteur  wrote  to  Chappuis  :  "I  am 
pursuing  as  best  I  can  these  studies  on  fermentation  which  are 
of  great  interest,  connected  as  they  are  with  the  impenetrable 
mystery  of  Life  and  Death.  I  am  hoping  to  mark  a  decisive 
step  very  soon  by  solving,  without  the  least  confusion,  the 
celebrated  question  of  spontaneous  generation.  Already  I  could 
speak,  but  I  want  to  push  my  experiments  yet  further.  There 
is  so  much  obscurity,  together  with  so  much  passion,  on  both 
sides,  that  I  shall  require  the  accuracy  of  an  arithmetical 
problem  to  convince  my  opponents  by  my  conclusions.  I  intend 
to  attain  even  that." 

This  progress  was  depicted  to  his  father  in  the  following 
letter,  dated  February  7,  1860 — 

' '  I  think  I  told  you  that  I  should  read  a  second  and  last  lec- 
ture on  my  old  researches  on  Friday,  at  the  Chemical  Society, 
before  several  members  of  the  Institute — amongst  others, 
Messrs.  Dumas  and  Claude  Bernard.  That  lecture  has  had  the 
same  success  as  the  first.  M.  Biot  heard  about  it  the  next  day 
through  some  distinguished  persons  who  were  in  the  audience, 
and  sent  for  me  in  order  to  kindly  express  his  great  satisfaction. 

"  After  I  had  finished,  M.  Dumas,  who  occupied  the  chair, 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

rose  and  addressed  me  in  these  words.  After  praising  the  zeal  I 
had  brought  to  this  novel  kind  of  teaching  at  the  Society's 
request,  and  the  so  great  penetration  I  had  given  proof  of,  in  the 
course  of  the  work  I  had  just  expounded,  he  added,  '  The 
Academie,  sir,  rewarded  you  a  few  days  ago  for  other  profound 
researches ;  your  audience  of  this  evening  tvill  applaud  you  as 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  professors  ice  possess.' 

"  All  I  have  underlined  was  said  in  those  very  words  by  M. 
Dumas,  and  was  followed  by  great  applause. 

' '  All  the  students  of  the  scientific  section  of  the  Ecole  Nor- 
male  were  present ;  they  felt  deeply  moved  and  several  of  them 
have  expressed  their  emotion  to  me. 

"  As  for  myself,  I  saw  the  realization  of  what  I  had  foreseen. 
You  know  how  I  have  always  told  you  confidentially  that  time 
would  see  the  growth  of  my  researches  on  the  molecular  dissym- 
metry of  natural  organic  products.  Founded  as  they  were  on 
varied  notions  borrowed  from  divers  branches  of  science — 
crystallography,  physics,  and  chemistry — those  studies  could 
not  be  followed  by  most  scientists  so  as  to  be  fully  under- 
stood. On  this  occasion  I  presented  them  in  the  aggregate 
with  some  clearness  and  power  and  every  one  was  struck  by 
their  importance. 

"It  is  not  by  their  form  that  these  two  lectures  have  de- 
lighted my  hearers,  it  is  by  their  contents;  it  is  the  future 
reserved  to  those  great  results,  so  unexpected,  and  opening  such 
entirely  new  vistas  to  physiology.  I  have  dared  to  say  so,  for  at 
these  heights  all  sense  of  personality  disappears,  and  there  only 
remains  that  sense  of  dignity  which  is  ever  inspired  by  true 
love  of  science. 

"  God  grant  that  by  my  persevering  labours  I  may  bring  a 
little  stone  to  the  frail  and  ill-assured  edifice  of  our  knowledge 
of  those  deep  mysteries  of  Life  and  Death  where  all  our 
intellects  have  so  lamentably  failed. 

"  P.S. — Yesterday  I  presented  to  the  Academy  my  re- 
searches on  spontaneous  generation ;  they  seemed  to  produce 
a  great  sensation.     More  later." 

When  Biot  heard  that  Pasteur  wished  to  tackle  this  study 
of  spontaneous  generation,  he  interposed,  as  he  had  done 
seven  years  before,  to  arrest  him  on  the  verge  of  his  audacious 
experiments  on  the  part  j)layed  by  dissymmetrical  forces  in 
the  development  of  life.  Vainly  Pasteur,  grieved  at  Biot's 
disapprobation,  explained  that  this  question,  in  the  course  of 


1860—1864  89 

such  researches,  had  become  an  imperious  necessity;  Biot 
would  not  be  convinced.  But  Pasteur,  in  spite  of  his  quasi- 
filial  attachment  to  Biot,  could  not  stop  where  he  was;  he 
had  to  go  through  to  the  end. 

"  You  will  never  find  your  way  out,"  cried  Biot. 

"  I  shall  try,"  said  Pasteur  modestly. 

Angry  and  anxious,  Biot  wished  Pasteur  to  promise  that 
he  would  relinquish  these  apparently  hopeless  researches. 
J.  B.  Dumas,  to  whom  Pasteur  related  the  more  than  dis- 
couraging remonstrances  of  Biot,  entrenched  himself  behind 
this  cautious  phrase — 

"  I  would  advise  no  one  to  dwell  too  long  on  such  a  subject." 

Senarmont  alone ,  full  of  confidence  in  the  ingenious  curiosity 
of  the  man  who  could  read  nature  by  dint  of  patience,  said 
that  Pasteur  should  be  allowed  his  own  way. 

It  is  regrettable  that  Biot — whose  passion  for  reading  was 
so  indefatigable  that  he  complained  of  not  finding  enough 
books  in  the  library  at  the  Institute — should  not  have  thought 
of  writing  the  history  of  this  question  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion. He  could  have  gone  back  to  Aristotle,  quoted  Lucretius, 
Virgil,  Ovid,  Pliny.  Philosophers,  poets,  naturalists,  all  be- 
lieved in  spontaneous  generation.  Time  went  on,  and  it  was 
still  believed  in.  In  the  sixteenth  century.  Van  Helmont — 
who  should  not  be  judged  by  that  one  instance — gave  a  cele- 
brated recipe  to  create  mice  :  any  one  could  work  that  prodigy 
by  putting  some  dirty  linen  in  a  receptacle,  together  with  a 
few  grains  of  wheat  or  a  piece  of  cheese.  Some  time  later  an 
Italian,  Buonanni,  announced  a  fact  no  less  fantastic  :  certain 
timberwood,  he  said,  after  rotting  in  the  sea,  produced  worms 
which  engendered  butterflies,  and  those  butterflies  became 
birds. 

Another  Italian,  less  credulous,  a  poet  and  a  physician, 
Francesco  Eedi,  belonging  to  a  learned  society  calling  itself 
The  Academy  of  Experience,  resolved  to  carefully  study  one 
of  those  supposed  phenomena  of  spontaneous  generation.  In 
order  to  demonstrate  that  the  worms  found  in  rotten  meat 
did  not  appear  spontaneously,  he  placed  a  piece  of  gauze  over 
the  meat.  Plies,  attracted  by  the  odour,  deposited  their  eggs 
on  the  gauze.  From  those  eggs  were  hatched  the  worms, 
which  had  until  then  been  supposed  to  begin  life  spontaneously 
in  the  flesh  itself.  This  simple  experiment  marked  some  pro- 
gress.    Later    on    another    Italian,    a    medical    professor    of 


90  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Padua,  Vallisneri,  recognized  that  the  grub  in  a  fruit  is  also 
hatched  from  an  egg  deposited  by  an  insect  before  the 
development  of  the  fruit. 

The  theory  of  spontaneous  generation,  still  losing  ground, 
appeared  to  be  vanquished  when  the  invention  of  the  micro- 
scope at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  brought  fresh 
arguments  to  its  assistance.  Whence  came  those  thousands 
of  creatures,  only  distinguishable  on  the  slide  of  the  micro- 
scope, those  infinitely  small  beings  which  appeared  in  rain 
water  as  in  any  infusion  of  organic  matter  when  exposed  to 
the  air  ?  How  could  they  be  explained  otherwise  than  through 
spontaneous  generation,  those  bodies  capable  of  producing 
1,000,000  descendants  in  less  than  forty -eight  hours. 

The  world  of  salons  and  of  minor  courts  was  pleased  to 
have  an  opinion  on  this  question.  The  Cardinal  of  Polignac, 
a  diplomat  and  a  man  of  letters,  wrote  in  his  leisure  moments 
a  long  Latin  poem  entitled  the  Anti- Lucretius.  After  scout- 
ing Lucretius  and  other  philosophers  of  the  same  school,  the 
cardinal  traced  back  to  one  Supreme  Foresight  the  mechan- 
ism and  organization  of  the  entire  world.  By  ingenious 
developments  and  circumlocutions,  worthy  of  the  Abbe  Delille, 
the  cardinal,  while  vaunting  the  wonders  of  the  microscope, 
which  he  called  "eye  of  our  eye,"  saw  in  it  only  another 
prodigy  offered  us  by  Almighty  Wisdom.  Of  all  those  accu- 
mulated and  verified  arguments,  this  simple  notion  stood  out  : 
"  The  earth,  which  contains  numberless  germs,  has  not  pro- 
duced them.     Everything  in  this  world  has  its  germ  or  seed." 

Diderot,  who  disseminated  so  many  ideas  (since  borrowed 
by  many  people  and  used  as  if  originated  by  them),  wrote 
in  some  tumultuous  pages  on  nature  :  ' '  Does  living  matter 
combine  with  living  matter?  how?  and  with  what  result? 
And  what  about  dead  matter  ?  * ' 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  problem 
was  again  raised  on  scientific  ground.  Two  priests,  one  an 
Englishman,  Needham,  and  the  other  an  Itahan,  Spallanzani, 
entered  the  fists.  Needham,  a  great  partisan  of  spontaneous 
generation,  studied  with  Buff  on  some  microscopic  animalculae. 
Buffon  afterwards  built  up  a  whole  system  which  became 
fashionable  at  that  time.  The  force  which  Needham  found  in 
matter,  a  force  which  he  called  productive  or  vegetative,  and 
which  he  regarded  as  charged  with  the  formation  of  the  organic 
world,  Buffon  explained  by  saying  that  there  are  certain  primi- 


1860—1864  91 

tive  and  incorruptible  parts  common  to  animals  and  to  vegetables. 
These  organic  molecules  cast  themselves  into  the  moulds  or 
shapes  which  constituted  different  beings.  When  one  of  those 
moulds  was  destroyed  by  death,  the  organic  molecules  became 
free ;  ever  active,  they  worked  the  putrefied  matter,  appropriat- 
ing to  themselves  some  raw  particles  and  forming,  said 
Buff  on,  "by  their  reunion,  a  multitude  of  little  organized 
bodies,  of  which  some,  like  earthworms,  and  fungi,  seem  to 
be  fair-sized  animals  or  vegetables,  but  of  which  others,  in 
almost  infinite  numbers,  can  only  be  seen  through  the 
microscope." 

All  those  bodies,  according  to  him,  only  existed  through 
spontaneous  generation.  Spontaneous  generation  takes  place 
continually  and  universally  after  death  and  sometimes  during 
life.  Such  was  in  his  view  the  origin  of  intestinal  worms. 
And,  carrying  his  investigations  further,  he  added,  "  The  eels 
in  flour  paste,  those  of  vinegar,  all  those  so-called  microscopic 
animals,  are  but  different  shapes  taken  spontaneously,  accord- 
ing to  circumstances,  by  that  ever  active  matter  which  only 
tends  to  organization." 

The  Abbe  Spallanzani,  armed  with  a  microscope,  studied 
these  infinitesimal  beings.  He  tried  to  distinguish  them  and 
their  mode  of  life.  Needham  had  affirmed  that  by  enclosing 
putrescible  matter  in  vases  and  by  placing  those  vases  on  warm 
ashes,  he  produced  animalculse.  Spallanzani  suspected : 
firstly  that  Needham  had  not  exposed  the  vases  to  a  sufficient 
degree  of  heat  to  kill  the  seeds  which  were  inside  ;  and  secondly, 
that  seeds  could  easily  have  entered  those  vases  and  given 
birth  to  animalculse,  for  Needham  had  only  closed  his  vases 
with  cork  stoppers,  which  are  very  porous. 

"I  repeated  that  experiment  with  more  accuracy,"  wrote 
Spallanzani.  "  I  used  hermetically  sealed  vases.  I  kept  them 
for  an  hour  in  boiling  water,  and  after  having  opened  them 
and  examined  their  contents  within  a  reasonable  time  I  found 
not  the  slightest  trace  of  animalculas,  though  I  had  examined 
with  the  microscope  the  infusions  from  nineteen  different 
vases." 

Thus  dropped  to  the  ground,  in  Spallanzani 's  eyes,  Need- 
ham's  singular  theory,  this  famous  vegetative  force,  this  occult 
virtue.  Yet  Needham  did  not  own  himself  beaten.  He 
retorted  that  Spallanzani  had  much  weakened,  perhaps  de- 
stroyed,  the   vegetative   force   of   the   infused  substances  by 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

leaving  his  vases  in  boiling  water  during  an  hour.  He  advised 
him  to  try  with  less  heat. 

The  public  took  an  interest  in  this  quarrel.  In  an  opuscule 
entitled  Singularities  of  Nature  (1769),  Voltaire,  a  born  jour- 
nalist, laughed  at  Needham,  whom  he  turned  into  an  Irish 
Jesuit  to  amuse  his  readers.  Joking  on  this  race  of  so-called 
eels  which  began  life  in  the  gravy  of  boiled  mutton,  he  said  : 
*'  At  once  several  philosophers  exclaimed  at  the  wonder  and 
said,  '  There  is  no  germ;  all  is  made,  all  is  regenerated  by  a 
vital  force  of  nature.'  'Attraction,'  said  one;  'Organized 
matter,'  said  another,  '  they  are  organic  molecules  which  have 
found  their  casts.'  Clever  physicists  were  taken  in  by  a 
Jesuit." 

In  those  pages,  lightly  penned,  nothing  remained  of  what 
Voltaire  called  "the  ridiculous  mistake,  the  unfortunate  ex- 
periments of  Needham,  so  triumphantly  refuted  by  M.  Spal- 
lanzani  and  rejected  by  whoever  has  studied  nature  at  all." 
"It  is  now  demonstrated  to  sight  and  to  reason  that  there  is 
no  vegetable,  no  animal  but  has  its  own  germ.'"  In  his 
Philosophic  Dictionary,  at  the  word  God,  "  It  is  very  strange," 
said  Voltaire,  "  that  men  should  deny  a  creator  and  yet  attri- 
bute to  themselves  the  power  of  creating  eels!"  The  Abbe 
Needham,  meeting  with  these  religious  arguments,  rather 
unexpected  from  Voltaire,  endeavoured  to  prove  that  the 
hypothesis  of  spontaneous  generation  was  in  perfect  accordance 
with  religious  beliefs.  But  both  on  Needham's  side  and  on 
Spall anzani's  there  was  a  complete  lack  of  conclusive  proofs. 

Philosophic  argumentation  always  returned  to  the  fore.  As 
recently  as  1846  Ernest  Bersot  (a  moralist  who  became  later 
a  director  of  the  Ecole  Normale)  wrote  in  his  book  on  Spiritual- 
ism :  ' '  The  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation  pleases 
simplicity -loving  minds ;  it  leads  them  far  beyond  their  own 
expectations.  But  it  is  yet  only  a  private  opinion,  and,  were 
it  recognized,  its  virtue  would  have  to  be  limited  and  narrowed 
down  to  the  production  of  a  few  inferior  animals." 

That  doctrine  was  about  to  be  noisily  re-introduced. 

On  December  20,  1858,  a  correspondent  of  the  Institute, 
M.  Pouchet,  director  of  the  Natural  History  Museum  of  Eouen, 
sent  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences  a  Note  on  Vegetable  and 
Animal  Proto-organisms  spontaneously  Generated  in  Artificial 
Air  and  in  Oxygen   Gas.     The  note  began  thus:    "At  this 


1860—1864  93 

time  when,  seconded  by  the  progress  of  science,  several 
naturalists  are  endeavouring  to  reduce  the  domain  of  spon- 
taneous generation  or  even  to  deny  its  existence  altogether,  I 
have  undertaken  a  series  of  researches  with  the  object  of 
elucidating  this  vexed  question."  Pouchet,  declaring  that  he 
had  taken  excessive  precautions  to  preserve  his  experiments 
from  any  cause  of  error,  proclaimed  that  he  was  prepared  to 
demonstrate  that  ' '  animals  and  plants  could  be  generated  in  a 
medium  absolutely  free  from  atmospheric  air,  and  in  which, 
therefore,  no  germ  of  organic  bodies  could  have  been  brought 
by  air." 

On  one  copy  of  that  communication,  the  opening  of  a  four 
years'  scientific  campaign,  Pasteur  had  underlined  the  pas- 
sages which  he  intended  to  submit  to  rigorous  experimentation. 
The  scientific  world  was  discussing  the  matter ;  Pasteur  set 
himself  to  work. 

A  new  installation,  albeit  a  summary  one,  allowed  him  to 
attempt  some  delicate  experiments.  At  one  of  the  extremities 
of  the  facade  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  on  the  same  line  as  the 
doorkeeper's  lodge,  a  pavilion  had  been  built  for  the  school 
architect  and  his  clerk.  Pasteur  succeeded  in  obtaining  pos- 
session of  this  small  building,  and  transformed  it  into  a  labora- 
tory. He  built  a  drying  stove  under  the  staircase ;  though  he 
could  only  reach  the  stove  by  crawling  on  his  knees,  yet  this 
was  better  than  his  old  attic.  He  also  had  a  pleasant  surprise 
— he  was  given  a  curator.  He  had  deserved  one  sooner,  for  he 
had  founded  the  institution  of  agreges  preparateurs.  Eemem- 
bering  his  own  desire,  on  leaving  the  Ecole  Normale,  to  have  a 
year  or  two  for  independent  study,  he  had  wished  to  facilitate 
for  others  the  obtaining  of  those  few  years  of  research  and  per- 
haps inspiration.  Thanks  to  him,  five  places  as  laboratory 
curators  were  exclusively  reserved  to  Ecole  Normale  students 
who  had  taken  their  degree  (agreges).  The  first  curator  who 
entered  the  new  laboratory  was  Jules  Eaulin,  a  young  man  with 
a  clear  and  sagacious  mind,  a  calm  and  tenacious  character, 
loving  difficulties  for  the  sake  of  overcoming  them. 

Pasteur  began  by  the  microscopic  study  of  atmospheric  air. 
"If  germs  exist  in  atmosphere,"  he  said,  "could  they  not 
be  arrested  on  their  way  ?  "  It  then  occurred  to  him  to  draw 
— through  an  aspirator — a  current  of  outside  air  through  a 
tube  containing  a  little  plug  of  cotton  w^ool.  The  current  as  it 
passed  deposited  on  this  sort  of  filter  some  of  the  solid  corpuscles 


94.  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

contained  in  the  air ;  the  cotton  wool  often  became  black  with 
those  various  kinds  of  dust.  Pasteur  assured  himself  that 
amongst  various  detritus  those  dusts  presented  spores  and 
germs.  "  There  are  therefore  in  the  air  some  organized  cor- 
puscles. Are  they  germs  capable  of  vegetable  productions,  or 
of  infusions?  That  is  the  question  to  solve."  He  undertook 
a  series  of  experiments  to  demonstrate  that  the  most  putrescible 
liquid  remained  pure  indefinitely  if  placed  out  of  the  reach  of 
atmospheric  dusts.  But  it  was  sufficient  to  place  in  a  pure 
liquid  a  particle  of  the  cotton-wool  filter  to  obtain  an  immediate 
alteration. 

A  year  before  starting  any  discussion  Pasteur  wrote  to 
Pouchet  that  the  results  which  he  had  attained  were  "  not 
founded  on  facts  of  a  faultless  exactitude.  I  think  you  are 
wrong,  not  in  believing  in  spontaneous  generation  (for  it  is 
difficult  in  such  a  case  not  to  have  a  preconceived  idea) ,  but  in 
affirming  the  existence  of  spontaneous  generation.  In  ex- 
perimental science  it  is  always  a  mistake  not  to  doubt  when 
facts  do  not  compel  affirmation.  ...  In  my  opinion,  the  ques- 
tion is  whole  and  untouched  by  decisive  proofs.  What  is  there 
in  air  which  provokes  organization?  Are  they  germs?  is  it  a 
solid?  is  it  a  gas?  is  it  a  fluid?  is  it  a  principle  such  as  ozone? 
All  this  is  unknown  and  invites  experiment." 

After  a    year's  study,  Pasteur    reached    this    conclusion  : 
"  Gases,  fluids,  electricity,  magnetism,  ozone,  things  known 
or  things  occult,  there  is  nothing  in  the  air  that  is  conditional 
to  Hfe,  except  the  germs  that  it  carries." 

Pouchet  defended  himself  vigorously.  To  suppose  that  germs 
came  from  air  seemed  to  him  impossible.  How  many  millions 
of  loose  eggs  or  spores  would  then  be  contained  in  a  cubic 
millimetre  of  atmospheric  air? 

"  What  will  be  the  outcome  of  this  giant's  struggle?  " 
grandiloquently  wrote  an  editor  of  the  Moniteur  Scientifique 
(April,  1860).  Pouchet  answered  this  anonymous  writer  by 
advising  him  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation 
adopted  of  old  by  so  many  "  men  of  genius."  Pouchet's  prin- 
cipal disciple  was  a  lover  of  science  and  of  letters,  M.  Nicolas 
Joly,  an  agrege  of  natural  science,  doctor  of  medicine,  and  pro- 
fessor of  physiology  at  Toulouse.  He  himself  had  a  pupil, 
Charles  Musset,  who  was  preparing  a  thesis  for  his  doctor's 
degree  under  the  title  :  Neio  Experimental  Researches  on 
Heterogenia,    or   Spontaneous    Generation.       By    the    words 


1860—1864  95 

heterogenia  or  spontaneous  generation  Joly  and  Musset  agreed 
in  affirming  that  "  they  did  not  mean  a  creation  out  of  nothing, 
but  the  production  of  a  new  organized  being,  lacking  parents, 
and  of  which  the  primordial  elements  are  drawn  from  ambient 
organic  matter." 

Thus  supported,  Pouchet  multiplied  objections  to  the  views 
of  Pasteur,  who  had  to  meet  every  argument.  Pasteur  in- 
tended to  narrow  more  and  more  the  sphere  of  discussion.  It 
was  an  ingenious  operation  to  take  the  dusts  from  a  cotton-wool 
filter,  to  disseminate  them  in  a  liquid,  and  thus  to  determine 
the  alteration  of  that  liquid ;  but  the  cotton  wool  itself  was  an 
organic  substance  and  might  be  suspected.  He  therefore  sub- 
stituted for  the  cotton  wool  a  plug  of  asbestos  fibre,  a  mineral 
substance.  He  invented  little  glass  flasks  with  a  long  curved 
neck ;  he  filled  them  with  an  alterable  liquid,  which  he  de- 
prived of  germs  by  ebullition ;  the  flask  was  in  communication 
with  the  outer  air  through  its  curved  tube,  but  the  atmospheric 
germs  were  deposited  in  the  curve  of  the  neck  without  reaching 
the  liquid ;  in  order  that  alteration  should  take  place,  the  vessel 
had  to  be  inclined  until  the  point  where  the  liquid  reached  the 
dusts  in  the  neck. 

But  Pouchet  said,  "  How  could  germs  contained  in  the  air 
be  numerous  enough  to  develop  in  every  organic  infusion? 
Such  a  crowd  of  them  would  produce  a  thick  mist  as  dense  as 
iron."  Of  all  the  difficulties  this  last  seemed  to  Pasteur  the 
hardest  to  solve.  Could  it  not  be  that  the  dissemination  of 
germs  was  more  or  less  thick  according  to  places?  "  Then," 
cried  the  heterogenists,  "there  would  be  sterile  zones  and 
fecund  zones,  a  most  convenient  hypothesis,  indeed  !  "  Pasteur 
let  them  laugh  whilst  he  was  preparing  a  series  of  flasks  re- 
served for  divers  experiments.  If  spontaneous  generation 
existed,  it  should  invariably  occur  in  vessels  filled  with  the  same 
alterable  liquid.  "  Yet  it  is  ever  possible,"  affirmed  Pasteur, 
' '  to  take  up  in  certain  places  a  notable  though  limited  volume 
of  ordinary  air,  having  been  submitted  to  no  physical  or 
chemical  change,  and  still  absolutely  incapable  of  producing  any 
alteration  in  an  eminently  putrescible  liquor."  He  was  ready 
to  prove  that  nothing  was  easier  than  to  increase  or  to  reduce 
the  number  either  of  the  vessels  where  productions  should  ap- 
pear or  of  the  vessels  where  those  productions  should  be  lacking. 
After  introducing  into  a  series  of  flasks  of  a  capacity  of  250 
cubic  centimetres  a  very  easily  corrupted  liquid,  such  as  yeast 


96  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

water,  he  submitted  each  flask  to  ebullition.  The  neck  of 
those  vessels  was  ended  off  in  a  vertical  point.  Whilst  the 
liquid  was  still  boiling,  he  closed,  with  an  enameller's  lamp,  the 
pointed  opening  through  which  the  steam  had  rushed  out, 
taking  with  it  all  the  air  contained  in  the  vessel.  Those  flasks 
were  indeed  calculated  to  satisfy  both  partisans  or  adversaries 
of  spontaneous  generation.  If  the  extremity  of  the  neck  of  one 
of  these  vessels  was  suddenly  broken,  all  the  ambient  air 
rushed  into  the  flask ,  bringing  in  all  the  suspended  dusts ;  the 
bulb  was  closed  again  at  once  with  the  assistance  of  a  jet  of 
flame.  Pasteur  could  then  carry  it  away  and  place  it  in  a  tem- 
perature of  25-30°  C,  quite  suitable  for  the  development  of 
germs  and  mucors. 

In  those  series  of  tests  some  flasks  showed  some  alteration, 
others  remained  pure,  according  to  the  place  where  the  air  had 
been  admitted.  During  the  beginning  of  the  year  1860  Pasteur 
broke  his  bulb  points  and  enclosed  ordinary  air  in  many  dif- 
ferent places,  including  the  cellars  of  the  Observatory  of  Paris. 
There,  in  that  zone  of  an  invariable  temperature,  the  abso- 
lutely calm  an-  could  not  be  compared  to  the  air  he  gathered 
in  the  yard  of  the  same  building.  The  results  were  also  very 
different  :  out  of  ten  vessels  opened  in  the  cellar,  closed  again 
and  placed  in  the  stove,  only  one  showed  any  alteration  ;  whilst 
eleven  others,  opened  in  the  yard,  all  yielded  organized  bodies. 

In  a  letter  to  his  father  (June,  1860),  Pasteur  wrote  :  "I 
have  been  prevented  from  writing  by  my  experiments,  which 
continue  to  be  very  curious.  But  it  is  such  a  wide  subject  that 
I  have  almost  too  many  ideas  of  experiments.  I  am  still  being 
contradicted  by  two  naturalists,  M.  Pouchet  of  Eouen  and  M. 
Joly  of  Toulouse.  But  I  do  not  waste  my  time  in  answering 
them ;  they  may  say  what  they  like,  truth  is  on  my  side.  They 
do  not  know  how  to  experiment ;  it  is  not  an  easy  art ;  it  de- 
mands, besides  certain  natural  qualities,  a  long  practice  which 
naturalists  have  not  generally  acquired  nowadays." 

When  the  long  vacation  approached,  Pasteur,  who  intended 
to  go  on  a  voyage  of  experiments,  laid  in  a  store  of  glass  flasks. 
He  wrote  to  Chappuis,  on  August  10,  1860  :  "  I  fear  from  your 
letter  that  you  will  not  go  to  the  Alps  this  year.  .  .  .  Besides 
the  pleasure  of  having  you  for  a  guide,  I  had  hoped  to  utihze 
your  love  of  science  by  offering  you  the  modest  part  of  curator. 
It  is  by  some  study  of  air  on  heights  afar  from  habitations  and 
vegetation  that  I  want  to  conclude  my  work  on  so-called  spon- 


1860—1864  97 

taneous  generation.  The  real  interest  of  that  work  for  me  lies 
in  the  connection  of  this  subject  with  that  of  ferments  which 
I  shall  take  up  again  November." 

Pasteur  started  for  Arbois,  taking  with  him  seventy -three 
flasks ;  he  opened  twenty  of  them  not  very  far  from  his  father's 
tannery,  on  the  road  to  Dole,  along  an  old  road,  now  a  path 
which  leads  to  the  mount  of  the  Bergere.  The  vine  labourers 
who  passed  him  wondered  what  this  holiday  tourist  could  be 
doing  with  all  those  little  phials ;  no  one  suspected  that  he  was 
penetrating  one  of  nature's  greatest  secrets.  "  What  would 
you  have?"  merrily  said  his  old  friend,  Jules  Vercel;  "it 
amuses  him!"  Of  those  twenty  vessels,  opened  some  dis- 
tance away  from  any  dwelling,  eight  yielded  organized  bodies. 

Pasteur  went  on  to  Salins  and  climbed  Mount  Poupet,  850 
metres  above  the  sea-level.  Out  of  twenty  vessels  opened,  only 
five  were  altered.  Pasteur  would  have  liked  to  charter  a 
balloon  in  order  to  prove  that  the  higher  you  go  the  fewer 
germs  you  find,  and  that  certain  zones  absolutely  pure  contain 
none  at  all.     It  was  easier  to  go  into  the  Alps. 

He  arrived  at  Chamonix  on  September  20,  and  engaged  a 
guide  to  make  the  ascent  of  the  Montanvert.  The  very  next 
morning  this  novel  sort  of  expedition  started.  A  mule  carried 
the  case  of  thirty-three  vessels,  followed  very  closely  by  Pasteur, 
who  watched  over  the  precious  burden  and  walked  alongside 
of  precipices  supporting  the  case  with  one  hand  so  that  it 
should  not  be  shaken. 

When  the  first  experiments  were  started  an  incident  occurred. 
Pasteur  has  himself  related  this  fact  in  his  report  to  the 
Academic.  "  In  order  to  close  again  the  point  of  the  flasks 
after  taking  in  the  air,  I  had  taken  with  me  an  eolipyle  spirit- 
lamp.  The  dazzling  whiteness  of  the  ice  in  the  sunlight  was 
such  that  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  the  jet  of  burning 
alcohol,  and  as  moreover  that  was  slightly  moved  by  the  wind, 
it  never  remained  on  the  broken  glass  long  enough  to  her- 
m.etically  seal  my  vessel.  All  the  means  I  might  have  em- 
ployed to  make  the  flame  visible  and  consequently  directable 
would  inevitably  have  given  rise  to  causes  of  error  by  spreading 
strange  dusts  into  the  air.  I  was  therefore  obliged  to  bring 
back  to  the  little  inn  of  Montanvert,  unsealed,  the  flasks  which 
I  had  opened  on  the  glacier." 

The  inn  was  a  sort  of  hut,  letting  in  wind  and  rain.  The 
thirteen  open  vessels  were  exposed  to  all  the  dusts  in  the  room 

H 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

where    Pasteur   slept ;   nearly    all   of   them  presented    altera- 
tions. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  guide  was  sent  to  Chamonix  where  a 
tinker  undertook  to  modify  the  lamp  in  view  of  the  coming 
experiment. 

The  next  morning,  twenty  flasks,  which  have  remained  cele- 
brated in  the  world  of  scientific  investigators,  were  brought  to 
the  Mer  de  Glace.  Pasteur  gathered  the  air  with  infinite  pre- 
cautions ;  he  used  to  enjoy  relating  these  details  to  those  people 
who  call  everything  easy.  After  tracing  with  a  steel  point  a 
line  on  the  glass,  careful  lest  dusts  should  become  a  cause  of 
error,  he  began  by  heating  the  neck  and  fine  point  of  the  bulb 
in  the  flame  of  the  little  spirit-lamp.  Then  raising  the  vessel 
above  his  head,  he  broke  the  point  with  steel  nippers,  the  long 
ends  of  which  had  also  been  heated  in  order  to  burn  the  dusts 
which  might  be  on  their  surface  and  which  would  have  been 
driven  into  the  vessel  by  the  quick  inrush  of  the  air.  Of  those 
twenty  flasks,  closed  again  immediately,  only  one  was  altered. 
"  If  all  the  results  are  compared  that  I  have  obtained  until 
now,"  he  wrote,  on  March  6,  1880,  when  relating  this  journey 
to  the  Academic,  "  it  seems  to  me  that  it  can  be  affirmed  that 
the  dusts  suspended  in  atmospheric  air  are  the  exclusive  origin, 
the  necessary  condition  of  life  in  infusions." 

And  in  an  unnoticed  little  sentence,  pointing  already  then  to 
the  goal  he  had  in  view,  "  What  would  be  most  desirable  would 
be  to  push  those  studies  far  enough  to  prepare  the  road  for  a 
serious  research  into  the  origin  of  various  diseases."  The 
action  of  those  little  beings,  agents  not  only  of  fermentation  but 
also  of  disorganization  and  putrefaction,  already  dawned  upon 
him. 

While  Pasteur  was  going  from  the  Observatoire  cellars  to  the 
Mer  de  Glace,  Pouchet  was  gathering  air  on  the  plains  of 
Sicily,  making  experiments  on  Etna,  and  on  the  sea.  He  saw 
everywhere,  he  wrote,  "  air  equally  favourable  to  organic 
genesis,  whether  surcharged  with  detritus  in  the  midst  of  our 
populous  cities,  or  taken  on  the  summit  of  a  mountain,  or  on 
the  sea,  whore  it  offers  extreme  purity.  With  a  cubic  deci- 
metre of  air,  taken  where  you  like,  I  affirm  that  you  can  ever 
produce  legions  of  microzoa." 

And  the  heterogenists  proclaimed  in  unison  that  "  every- 
where, strictly  everywhere,  air  is  constantly  favourable  to  life." 
Those   who    followed   the    debate   nearly    all    leaned   towards 


1860—1864  99 

Pouchet.  "I  am  afraid,"  wrote  a  scientific  journalist  in  La 
Presse  (1860),  "that  the  experiments  you  quote,  M.  Pasteur, 
will  turn  against  you.  .  .  .  The  world  into  which  you  wish  to 
take  us  is  really  too  fantastic.  ..." 

And  yet  some  adversaries  should  have  been  struck  by  the 
efforts  of  a  mind  which,  while  marching  forward  to  establish 
new  facts,  was  ever  seeking  arguments  against  itself,  and 
turned  back  to  strengthen  points  which  seemed  yet  weak.  In 
November,  Pasteur  returned  to  his  studies  on  fermentations  in 
general  and  lactic  fermentation  in  particular.  Endeavouring 
to  bring  into  evidence  the  animated  nature  of  the  lactic  ferment, 
and  to  indicate  the  most  suitable  surroundings  for  the  self- 
development  of  that  ferment,  he  had  come  across  some  compli- 
cations which  hampered  the  purity  and  the  progress  of  that 
culture.  Then  he  had  perceived  another  fermentation,  following 
upon  lactic  fermentation  and  known  as  butyric  fermentation. 
As  he  did  not  immediately  perceive  the  origin  of  this  butyric 
acid — which  causes  the  bad  smell  in  rancid  butter — he  ended 
by  being  struck  by  the  inevitable  coincidence  between  the  (then 
called)  infusory  animalcule  and  the  production  of  this  acid, 

"  The  most  constantly  repeated  tests,"  he  wrote  in  February, 
1861,  "have  convinced  me  that  the  transformation  of  sugar, 
mannite  and  lactic  acid  into  butyric  acid  is  due  exclusively  to 
those  Infusories,  and  they  must  be  considered  as  the  real 
butyric  ferment."  Those  vibriones  that  Pasteur  described  as 
under  the  shape  of  small  cylindric  rods  with  rounded  ends, 
sliding  about,  sometimes  in  a  chain  of  three  or  four  articles, 
he  sowed  in  an  appropriate  medium,  as  he  sowed  beer  yeast. 
But,  by  a  strange  phenomenon,  "those  infusory  animalculas," 
he  said,  "  live  and  multiply  indefinitely,  without  requiring  the 
least  quantity  of  air.  And  not  only  do  they  live  without  air, 
but  air  actually  kills  them.  It  is  sufficient  to  send  a  current  of 
atmospheric  air  during  an  hour  or  two  through  the  liquor 
where  those  vibriones  were  multiplying  to  cause  them  all  to 
perish  and  thus  to  arrest  butyric  fermentation,  whilst  a  current 
of  pure  carbonic  acid  gas  passing  through  that  same  liquor 
hindered  them  in  no  way.  Thence  this  double  proposition," 
concluded  Pasteur ;  ' '  the  butyric  ferment  is  an  infusory ;  that 
infusory  lives  without  free  oxygen."  He  afterwards  called 
anaerobes  those  beings  which  do  not  require  air,  in  opposition 
to  the  name  of  aerobes  given  to  other  microscopic  beings  who 
require  air  to  live. 

H  2 


100  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Biot,  without  knowing  all  the  consequences  of  these  studies, 
had  not  been  long  in  perceiving  that  he  had  been  far  too 
sceptical,  and  that  physiological  discoveries  of  the  very  first 
rank  would  be  the  outcome  of  researches  on  so-called  spon- 
taneous generation.  He  would  have  wished,  before  he  died,  not 
only  that  Pasteur  should  be  the  unanimously  selected  candidate 
for  the  1861  Zecker  prize  in  the  Chemistry  Section,  but  also 
that  his  friend,  forty-eight  years  younger  than  himself,  should 
be  a  member  of  the  Institute.  At  the  beginning  of  1861,  there 
was  one  vacancy  in  the  Botanical  Section.  Biot  took  advan- 
tage of  the  researches  pursued  by  Pasteur  within  the  last  three 
years,  to  say  and  to  print  that  he  should  be  nominated  as  a 
candidate.  "I  can  hear  the  commonplace  objection  :  he  is  a 
chemist,  a  physicist,  not  a  professional  botanist.  .  .  .  But  that 
very  versatility,  ever  active  and  ever  successful,  should  be  a 
title  in  his  favour.  .  .  .  Let  us  judge  of  men  by  their  works 
and  not  by  the  destination  more  or  less  wide  or  narrow  that  they 
have  marked  out  for  themselves.  Pasteur  made  his  debut 
before  the  Academic  in  1848,  with  the  remarkable  treatise 
which  contained  by  implication  the  resolution  of  the  paratartaric 
acid  into  its  two  comjoonents,  right  and  left.  He  was  then 
twenty-six ;  the  sensation  produced  is  not  forgotten.  Since 
then,  during  the  twelve  years  which  followed,  he  has  submitted 
to  your  appreciation  twenty-one  papers,  the  last  ten  relating 
to  vegetable  physiology.  All  are  full  of  new  facts,  often  very 
unexpected,  several  very  far  reaching,  not  one  of  which  has 
been  found  inaccurate  by  competent  judges.  If  to-day,  by 
your  suffrage,  you  introduce  M.  Pasteur  into  the  Botanical 
Section,  as  you  might  safely  have  done  for  Theodore  de 
Saussure  or  Ingenhousz,  you  will  have  acquired  for  the  Acade- 
mic and  for  that  particular  section  an  experimentalist  of  the 
same  order  as  those  two  great  men." 

Balard,  who  in  this  academic  campaign  made  common  cause 
with  Biot,  was  also  making  efforts  to  persuade  several  mem- 
bers of  the  Botanical  Section.  He  was  walking  one  day  in  the 
Luxembourg  with  Moquin-Tandon,  pouring  out,  in  his  rasping 
voice,  arguments  in  favour  of  Pasteur.  "  Well,"  said  Moquin- 
Tandon,  "  let  us  go  to  Pasteur's,  and  if  you  find  a  botanical 
work  in  his  library  I  shall  put  him  on  the  list. ' '  It  was  a  witty 
form  given  to  the  scruples  of  the  botanists.  Pasteur  only  had 
twenty-four  votes  ;  Duchartre  was  elected. 

The   study  of   a  microscopic   fungus,   capable   by   itself   of 


1860—1864  101 

transforming  wine  into  vinegar,  the  bringing  to  light  of  the 
action  of  that  mycoderma,  endowed  with  the  power  of  taking 
oxygen  from  air  and  fixing  it  upon  alcohol,  thus  transforming 
the  latter  into  acetic  acid ;  the  most  ingenious  experiments  to 
demonstrate  the  absolute  and  exclusive  power  of  the  little  plant, 
all  gave  reason  to  Biot's  af&rmation  that  such  skill  in  the  obser- 
vation of  inferior  vegetables  equalled  any  botanist's  claim. 
Pasteur,  showing  that  the  interpretations  of  the  causes  which 
act  in  the  formation  of  vinegar  were  false,  and  that  alone  the 
microscopic  fungus  did  everything,  was  constantly  dwelling  on 
this  power  of  the  infinitesimally  small.  "  Mycoderma,"  he 
said,  "  can  bring  the  action  of  combustion  of  the  oxygen  in  air 
to  bear  on  a  number  of  organic  materia.  If  microscopic  beings 
were  to  disappear  from  our  globe,  the  surface  of  the  earth 
would  be  encumbered  with  dead  organic  matter  and  corpses  of 
all  kinds,  animal  and  vegetable.  It  is  chiefly  they  who  give 
to  oxygen  its  powers  of  combustion.  Without  them,  life  would 
become  impossible  because  death  would  be  incomplete." 
.  Pasteur's  ideas  on  fermentation  and  putrefaction  were  being 
adopted  by  disciples  unknown  to  him.  "  I  am  sending  you," 
he  wrote  to  his  father,  "  a  treatise  on  fermentation,  which  was 
the  subject  of  a  recent  competition  at  the  Montpellier  Faculty. 
This  work  is  dedicated  to  me  by  its  author,  whom  I  do  not  know 
at  all,  a  circumstance  which  shows  that  my  results  are  spread- 
ing and  exciting  some  attention. 

"  I  have  only  read  the  last  pages,  which  have  pleased  me  ;  if 
the  rest  is  the  same ,  it  is  a  very  good  resume ,  entirely  conceived 
in  the  new  direction  of  my  labours,  evidently  well  understood 
by  this  young  doctor. 

"  M.  Biot  is  very  well,  only  suffering  a  little  from  insomnia. 
He  has,  fortunately  for  his  health,  finished  that  great  account 
of  my  former  results  which  will  be  the  greatest  title  I  can  have 
to  the  esteem  of  scientists." 

Biot  died  without  having  realized  his  last  wish,  which  was  to 
have  Pasteur  for  a  colleague.  It  was  only  at  the  end  of  the 
year  1862  that  Pasteur  was  nominated  by  the  Miiieralogical 
Section  for  the  seat  of  Senarmont.  This  new  candidature  did 
not  go  without  a  hitch.  In  his  study  on  tartrates,  Pasteur,  as 
will  be  remembered,  had  discovered  that  their  crystalline  forms 
were  hemihedral.  When  he  examined  the  characteristic  faces, 
he  held  the  crystal  in  a  particular  way  and  said  :  "  It  is  hemi- 
hedral on  the  right  side."     A  German  mineralogist,  named 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Rammelsberg,  holding  the  crystal  in  the  opposite  direction, 
said:  "It  is  hemihedral  on  the  left  side."  It  was  a  mere 
matter  of  conventional  orientation  ;  nothing  was  changed  in  the , 
scientific  results  announced  by  Pasteur.  But  some  adversaries 
made  a  weapon  of  that  inverted  crystal ;  not  a  dangerous 
weapon,  thought  Pasteur  at  first,  fancying  that  a  few  words 
would  clear  the  misunderstanding.  But  the  campaign  per- 
sisted, with  insinuations,  murmurs,  whisperings.  When 
Pasteur  saw  this  simple  difference  in  the  way  the  crystal  was 
held  stigmatised  as  a  cause  of  error,  he  desired  to  cut  short  this 
quarrel  made  in  Germany.  He  then  had  with  him  no  longer 
Eaulin,  but  M.  Duclaux,  who  was  beginning  his  scientific  life. 
M.  Duclaux  remembers  one  day  when  Pasteur,  seeing  that 
incontrovertible  arguments  were  required,  sent  for  a  cabinet 
maker  with  his  tools.  He  superintended  the  making  of  a  com- 
plete wooden  set  of  the  crystalline  forms  of  tartrates,  a  gigantic 
set,  such  as  Gulliver  might  have  seen  in  Brobdingnag  if  he  had 
studied  geometrical  forms  in  that  island.  A  coating  of  coloured 
paper  finished  the  work ;  green  paper  marked  the  hemihedral 
face.  A  member  of  the  Philomathic  Society,  Pasteur  asked 
the  Society  to  give  up  the  meeting  of  November  8,  1862,  to  the 
discussion  of  that  subject.  Several  of  his  colleagues  vainly 
endeavoured  to  dissuade  him  from  that  intention ;  Pasteur 
hearkened  to  no  one.  He  took  with  him  his  provision  of 
wooden  crystals,  and  gave  a  vivid  and  impassioned  lecture. 
"  If  you  know  the  question,"  he  asked  his  adversaries,  "  where 
is  your  conscience?  If  you  know  it  not,  why  meddle  with 
it?"  And  with  one  of  his  accustomed  sudden  turns,  "  What 
is  all  this?  "  he  added.  "  One  of  those  incidents  to  which  we 
all,  more  or  less,  are  exposed  by  the  conditions  of  our  career; 
no  bitterness  remains  behind.  Of  what  account  is  it  in  the 
presence  of  those  mysteries,  so  varied,  so  numerous,  that  we 
all,  in  divers  directions,  are  working  to  clear?  It  is  true  I 
have  had  recourse  to  an  unusual  means  of  defending  myself 
against  attacks  not  openly  published,  but  I  think  that  means 
was  safe  and  loyal,  and  deferential  towards  you.  And,"  he 
added,  thinking  of  Biot  and  Senarmont,  "will  you  have  my 
full  confession  ?  You  know  that  I  had  during  fifteen  years  the 
inestimable  advantage  of  the  intercourse  of  two  men  who  are 
no  more,  but  whose  scientific  probity  shone  as  one  of  the 
beacons  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences.  Before  deciding  on  the 
course  I  have  now  followed,  I  questioned  my  memory  and 


1860—1864  103 

endeavoured  to  revive  their  advice,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
they  would  not  have  disowned  me." 

M.  Duclaux  said  about  this  meeting:  "Pasteur  has  since 
then  won  many  oratorical  victories.  I  do  not  know  of  a  greater 
one  than  that  deserved  by  that  acute  and  penetrating  improvisa- 
tion. He  was  still  much  heated  as  we  were  walking  back  to 
the  Eue  d'Ulm,  and  I  remember  making  him  laugh  by  asking 
him  why,  in  the  state  of  mind  he  was  in,  he  had  not  concluded 
by  hurling  his  wooden  crystals  at  his  adversaries'  heads." 

On  December  8,  1862,  Pasteur  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Academie  des  Sciences ;  out  of  sixty  voters  he  received  thirty- 
six  suffrages. 

The  next  morning,  when  the  gates  of  the  Montparnasse 
cemetery  were  opened,  a  woman  walked  towards  Biot's  grave 
with  her  hands  full  of  flowers.  It  was  Mme.  Pasteur  who  was 
bringing  them  to  him  who  lay  there  since  February  5,  1862, 
and  who  had  loved  Pasteur  with  so  deep  an  affection. 

A  letter  picked  up  at  a  sale  of  autographs,  one  of  the  last 
Biot  wrote,  gives  a  finishing  touch  to  his  moral  portrait.  It 
is  addressed  to  an  unknown  person  discouraged  with  this  life. 
"  Sir, — The  confidence  you  honour  me  with  touches  me.  But 
I  am  not  a  physician  of  souls.  However,  in  my  opinion,  you 
could  not  do  better  than  seek  remedies  to  your  moral  suffering 
in  work,  religion,  and  charity.  A  useful  work  taken  up  with 
energy  and  persevered  in  will  revive  by  occupation  the  forces 
of  your  mind.  Eeligious  feelings  will  console  you  by  inspiring 
you  with  patience.  Charity  manifested  to  others  will  soften 
your  sorrows  and  teach  you  that  you  are  not  alone  to  suffer  in 
this  life.  Look  around  you,  and  you  will  see  afflicted  ones  more 
to  be  pitied  than  yourself.  Try  to  ease  their  sufferings ;  the 
good  you  will  do  to  them  will  fall  back  upon  yourself  and  will 
show  you  that  a  life  which  can  thus  be  employed  is  not  a  burden 
which  cannot,  which  must  not  be  borne." 

On  his  entering  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  Balard  and 
Dumas  advised  Pasteur  to  let  alone  his  wooden  crystals  and  to 
continue  his  studies  on  ferments.  He  undertook  to  demon- 
strate that  ' '  the  hypothesis  of  a  phenomenon  of  mere  contact 
is  not  more  admissible  than  the  opinion  which  placed  the  fer- 
ment character  exclusively  in  dead  albuminoid  matter.  Whilst 
continuing  his  researches  on  beings  which  could  live  without 
air,  he  tried,  as  he  went  along,  a  propos  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion, to  find  some  weak  point  in  his  work.     Until  now  the 


104  THE  IIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

liquids  he  had  used,  however  alterable  they  were,  had  been 
brought  up  to  boiling  point.  Was  there  not  some  new  and 
decisive  experiment  to  make?  Could  he  not  study  organic 
matter  as  constituted  by  life  and  expose  to  the  contact  of  air 
deprived  of  its  germs  some  fresh  liquids,  highly  putrescible, 
such  as  blood  and  urine?  Claude  Bernard,  joining  in  these 
experiments  of  Pasteur's,  himself  took  some  blood  from  a  dog. 
This  blood  was  sealed  up  in  a  glass  phial,  with  every  condition 
of  purity,  and  the  phial  remained  in  a  stove  constantly  heated 
up  to  30°  C.  from  March  3  until  April  20,  1862,  when  Pasteur 
laid  it  on  the  Academic  table.  The  blood  had  suffered  no  sort 
of  putrefaction ;  neither  had  some  urine  treated  in  the  same 
way.  "  The  conclusions  to  which  I  have  been  led  by  my  first 
series  of  experiments,"  said  Pasteur  before  the  Academic,  "  are 
therefore  applicable  in  all  cases  to  organic  substances." 

While  studying  putrefaction,  which  is  itself  but  a  fermenta- 
tion applied  to  animal  materia,  while  show^ing  the  marvellous 
power  of  the  infinitesimally  small,  he  foresaw  the  immensity 
of  the  domain  he  had  conquered,  as  will  be  proved  by  the  fol- 
lowing incident.  Some  time  after  the  Academic  election,  in 
March,  1863,  the  Emperor,  who  took  an  interest  in  all  that 
took  place  in  the  small  laboratory  of  the  Eue  d'Ulm,  desired 
to  speak  with  Pasteur.  J.  B.  Dumas'  claimed  the  privilege  of 
presenting  his  former  pupil,  and  the  interview  took  place  at  the 
Tuileries.  Napoleon  questioned  Pasteur  with  a  gentle,  slightly 
dreamy  insistence.  Pasteur  wrote  the  next  day  :  "I  assured 
the  Emperor  that  all  my  ambition  was  to  arrive  at  the  know- 
ledge of  the  causes  of  putrid  and  contagious  diseases." 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  chapter  on  ferments  was  not  yet 
closed ;  Pasteur  was  attracted  by  studies  on  wine.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  1863  holidays,  just  before  starting  for  Arbois, 
he  drew  up  this  programme  with  one  of  his  pupils  :  ' '  From  the 
20th  to  the  30th  (August)  preparation  in  Paris  of  all  the 
vessels,  apparatus,  products,  that  we  must  take.  September  1, 
departure  for  the  Jura  ;  installation ;  purchase  of  the  products 
of  a  vineyard.  Immediate  beginning  of  tests  of  all  kinds.  We 
shall  have  to  hurry  ;  grapes  do  not  keep  long." 

Whilst  he  was  preparing  this  vintage  tour,  which  he  in- 
tended to  make  with  three  "  Normaliens,"  Duclaux,  Gernez 
and  Lechartier,  the  three  heterogenists,  Pouchet,  Joly  an.d 
Musset,  proposed  to  use  that  same  time  in  fighting  Pasteur 
on  his  own  ground.     They  started  from  Bagneres-de-Luchon 


1860—1864  105 

followed  by  several  guides  and  taking  with  them  all  kinds 
of  provisions  and  some  little  glass  flasks  with  a  slender  pointed 
neck.  They  crossed  the  pass  of  Venasque  without  incident, 
and  decided  to  go  further,  to  the  Eencluse.  Some  isard- 
stalkers  having  come  towards  the  strange-looking  party,  they 
were  signalled  away ;  even  the  guides  were  invited  to  stand 
aside.  It  was  necessary  to  prevent  any  dusts  from  reaching 
the  bulbs,  which  were  thus  opened  at  8  p.m.  at  a  height 
of  2,083  metres.  But  eighty-three  metres  higher  than  the 
Montanvert  did  not  seem  to  them  enough,  they  wished  to 
go  higher.  "  We  shall  sleep  on  the  mountain,"  said  the 
three  scientists.  Fatigue  and  bitter  cold,  they  withstood 
everything  with  the  courage  inspired  by  a  problem  to  solve. 
The  next  morning  they  climbed  across  that  rocky  chaos,  and 
at  last  reached  the  foot  of  one  of  the  greatest  glaciers  of  the 
Maladetta,  3,000  metres  above  the  sea-level.  "A  very 
deep  narrow  crevasse,"  says  Pouchet,  "seemed  to  us  the 
most  suitable  place  for  our  experiments."  Four  phials  (filled 
with  a  decoction  of  hay)  were  opened  and  sealed  again  with 
precautions  that  Pouchet  considered  as  exaggerated. 

Pouchet,  in  his  merely  scientific  report,  does  not  relate 
the  return  journey,  yet  more  perilous  than  the  ascent.  At 
one  of  the  most  dangerous  places,  Joly  slipped,  and  would 
have  rolled  into  a  precipice,  but  for  the  strength  and  presence 
of  mind  of  one  of  the  guides.  All  three  at  last  came  back 
to  Luchon,  forgetful  of  dangers  run,  and  glorying  at  having 
reached  1,000  metres  higher  than  Pasteur.  They  triumphed 
when  they  saw  alteration  in  their  flasks!  "Therefore," 
said  Pouchet,  "the  air  of  the  Maladetta,  and  of  high 
mountains  in  general,  is  not  incapable  of  producing  altera- 
tion in  an  eminently  putrescible  liquor ;  therefore  heterogenia 
or  the  production  of  a  new  being  devoid  of  parents,  but 
formed  at  the  expense  of  ambient  organic  matter,  is  for  us  a 
reality." 

The  Academy  of  Sciences  was  taking  more  and  more 
interest  in  this  debate.  In  November,  1863,  Joly  and  Musset 
expressed  a  wish  that  the  Academy  should  appoint  a  Com- 
mission, before  whom  the  principal  experiments  of  Pasteur 
and  of  his  adversaries  should  be  repeated.  On  this  occasion 
Flourens  expressed  his  opinion  thus  :  "  I  am  blamed  in  certain 
quarters  for  giving  no  opinion  on  the  question  of  spontaneous 
generation.     As  long  as  my  opinion  was  not  formed,  I  had 


106  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

nothing  to  say.  It  is  now  formed,  and  I  give  it  :  M.  Pasteur's 
experiments  are  decisive.  If  spontaneous  generation  is  real, 
what  is  required  to  obtain  animalculse?  Air  and  putrescible 
liquor.  M.  Pasteur  puts  air  and  putrescible  liquor  together 
and  nothing  happens.  Therefore  spontaneous  generation  is 
not.     To  doubt  further  is  to  misunderstand  the  question." 

Already  in  the  preceding  year,  the  Academie  itself  had 
evidenced  its  opinion  by  giving  Pasteur  the  prize  of  a  com- 
petition proposed  in  these  terms  :  "  To  attempt  to  throw  some 
new  light  upon  the  question  of  so-called  spontaneous  genera- 
tion by  well-conducted  experiments."  Pasteur's  treatise  on 
Organized  Corpuscles  existing  in  Atmosphere  had  been  unani- 
mously preferred.  Pasteur  might  have  entrenched  himself 
behind  the  sujffrages  of  the  Academy,  but  begged  it,  in  order 
to  close  those  incessant  debates,  to  appoint  the  Commission 
demanded  by  Joly  and  Musset. 

The  members  of  the  Commission  were  Flourens,  Dumas, 
Brongniart,  Milne-Edwards,  and  Balard.  Pasteur  wished 
that  the  discussion  should  take  place  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
it  was  fixed  for  the  first  fortnight  in  March.  But  Pouchet, 
Joly  and  Musset  asked  for  a  delay  on  account  of  the  cold. 
"  We  consider  that  it  might  compromise,  perhaps  prevent, 
our  results,  to  operate  in  a  temperature  which  often  goes  below 
zero  even  in  the  south  of  France.  How  do  we  know  that  it 
will  not  freeze  in  Paris  between  the  first  and  fifteenth  of 
March?"  They  even  asked  the  Commission  to  adjourn  ex- 
periments until  the  summer.  "  I  am  much  surprised,"  wrote 
Pasteur,  "  at  the  delay  sought  by  Messrs.  Pouchet,  Joly  and 
Musset ;  it  would  have  been  easy  with  a  stove  to  raise  the 
temperature  to  the  degree  required  by  those  gentlemen.  For 
my  part  I  hasten  to  assure  the  Academy  that  I  am  at  its 
disposal,  and  that  in  summer,  or  in  any  other  season,  I  am 
ready  to  repeat  my  experiments." 

Some  evening  scientific  lectures  had  just  been  inaugurated 
at  the  Sorbonne ;  such  a  subject  as  spontaneous  generation 
was  naturally  on  the  programme.  When  Pasteur  entered  the 
large  lecture  room  of  the  Sorbonne  on  April  7,  1864,  he 
must  have  been  reminded  of  the  days  of  his  youth,  when 
crowds  came,  as  to  a  theatrical  performance,  to  hear  J.  B. 
Dumas  speak.  Dumas'  pupil,  now  a  master,  in  his  turn 
found  a  still  greater  crowd  invading  every  corner.  Amongst 
the    professors    and    students,    such    celebrities     as     Duruy, 


1860—1864  107 

Alexandre  Dumas  senior,  George  Sand,  Princess  Mathilde, 
were  being  pointed  out.  Around  them,  the  inevitable 
"  smart  "  people  who  must  see  everything  and  be  seen  every- 
where, without  whom  no  function  favoured  by  fashion 
would  be  complete ;  in  short  what  is  known  as  the  ' '  Tout 
Paris."  But  this  "  Tout  Paris  "  was  about  to  receive  a  novel 
impression,  probably  a  lasting  one.  The  man  who  stood 
before  this  fashionable  audience  was  not  one  of  those 
speakers  who  attempt  by  an  insinuating  exordium  to  gain 
the  good  graces  of  their  hearers ;  it  was  a  grave-looking 
man,  his  face  full  of  quiet  energy  and  reflective  force.  He 
began  in  a  deep,  firm  voice,  evidently  earnestly  convinced 
of  the  greatness  of  his  mission  as  a  teacher:  "Great  pro- 
blems are  now  being  handled,  keeping  every  thinking  man  in 
suspense ;  the  unity  or  multiplicity  of  human  races ;  the 
creation  of  man  1,000  years  or  1,000  centuries  ago,  the 
fixity  of  species,  or  the  slow  and  progressive  transformation 
of  one  species  into  another ;  the  eternity  of  matter ;  the  idea 
of  a  God  unnecessary.  Such  are  some  of  the  questions  that 
humanity  discusses  nowadays." 

He  had  now,  he  continued,  entered  upon  a  subject  ac- 
cessible to  experimentation,  and  which  he  had  made  the  object 
of  the  strictest  and  most  conscientious  studies.  Can  matter 
organize  itself?  Can  living  beings  come  into  the  world 
without  having  been  preceded  by  beings  similar  to  them?  After 
showing  that  the  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation  had 
gradually  lost  ground,  he  explained  how  the  invention  of 
the  microscope  had  caused  it  to  reappear  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  "  in  the  face  of  those  beings,  so  numer- 
ous, so  varied,  so  strange  in  their  shapes,  the  origin  of  which 
was  connected  with  the  presence  of  all  dead  vegetable  and 
animal  matter  in  a  state  of  disorganization."  He  went  on 
to  say  how  Pouchet  had  taken  up  this  study,  and  to  point 
out  the  errors  that  this  new  partisan  of  an  old  doctrine  had 
committed,  errors  difficult  to  recognize  at  first.  With  perfect 
clearness  and  simplicity,  Pasteur  explained  how  the  dusts  which 
are  suspended  in  air  contain  germs  of  inferior  organized  beings 
and  how  a  liquid  preserved,  by  certain  precautions,  from  the 
contact  of  these  germs  can  be  kept  indefinitely,  giving  his 
audience  a  glimpse  of  his  laboratory  methods. 

"Here,"   he  said,   "is  an  infusion  of  organic  matter,   as 
limpid  as  distilled  water,  and  extremely  alterable.     It  has  been 


108  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

prepared  to-day.  To-morrow  it  will  contain  animalculse ,  little 
infusories,  or  flakes  of  mouldiness. 

"  I  place  a  portion  of  that  infusion  into  a  flask  with  a  long 
neck,  like  this  one.  Suppose  I  boil  the  liquid  and  leave  it  to 
cool.  After  a  few  days,  mouldiness  or  animalcnlse  will  develop 
in  the  liquid.  By  boiling,  I  destroyed  any  germs  contained  in 
the  liquid  or  against  the  glass ;  but  that  infusion  being  again 
in  contact  with  air,  it  becomes  altered,  as  all  infusions  do. 
Now  suppose  I  repeat  this  experiment,  but  that,  before  boiling 
the  liquid,  I  draw  (by  means  of  an  enameller's  lamp)  the  neck 
of  the  flask  into  a  point,  leaving,  however,  its  extremity  open. 
This  being  done,  I  boil  the  liquid  in  the  flask,  and  leave  it  to 
cool.  Now  the  liquid  of  this  second  flask  will  remain  pure  not 
only  two  days,  a  month,  a  year,  but  three  or  four  years — for 
the  experiment  I  am  telling  you  about  is  already  four  years  old , 
and  the  liquid  remains  as  limpid  as  distilled  water.  What  dif- 
ference is  there,  then,  between  those  two  vases?  They  contain 
the  same  liquid,  they  both  contain  air,  both  are  open  !  Why 
does  one  decay  and  the  other  remain  pure?  The  only  dif- 
ference between  them  is  this  :  in  the  first  case,  the  dusts  sus- 
pended in  air  and  their  germs  can  fall  into  the  neck  of  the 
flask  and  arrive  into  contact  with  the  liquid,  where  they  find 
appropriate  food  and  develop ;  thence  microscopic  beings.  In 
the  second  flask,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  impossible,  or  at  least 
extremely  difficult,  unless  air  is  violently  shaken,  that  dusts 
suspended  in  air  should  enter  the  vase  ;  they  fall  on  its  curved 
neck.  When  air  goes  in  and  out  of  the  vase  through  diffusions 
or  variations  of  temperature ,  the  latter  never  being  sudden ,  the 
air  comes  in  slowly  enough  to  drop  the  dusts  and  germs  that 
it  carries  at  the  opening  of  the  neck  or  in  the  first  curves. 

' '  This  experiment  is  full  of  instruction  ;  for  this  must  be 
noted,  that  everything  in  air  save  its  dusts  can  easily  enter  the 
vase  and  come  into  contact  with  the  liquid.  Imagine  what  you 
choose  in  the  air — electricity,  magnetism,  ozone,  unknown 
forces  even,  all  can  reach  the  infusion.  Only  one  thing  cannot 
enter  easily,  and  that  is  dust,  suspended  in  air.  And  the  proof 
of  this  is  that  if  I  shake  the  vase  violently  two  or  three  times, 
in  a  few  days  it  contains  animalcula?  or  mouldiness.  Why? 
because  air  has  come  in  violently  enough  to  carry  dust  with  it. 

"  And,  therefore,  gentlemen,  I  could  point  to  that  hquid  and 
say  to  you,  I  have  taken  my  drop  of  water  from  the  immensity  of 
creation,  and  I  have  taken  it  full  of  the  elements  appropriated 


1860—1864  109 

to  the  development  of  inferior  beings.  And  I  wait,  I  watch, 
I  question  it,  begging  it  to  recommence  for  me  the  beautiful 
spectacle  of  the  first  creation.  But  it  is  dumb,  dumb  since 
these  experiments  were  begun  several  years  ago ;  it  is  dumb 
because  I  have  kept  it  from  the  only  thing  man  cannot  pro- 
duce, from  the  germs  which  float  in  the  air,  from  Life,  for  Life 
is  a  germ  and  a  germ  is  Life.  Never  will  the  -doctrine  of  spon- 
taneous generation  recover  from  the  mortal  blow  of  this  simple 
experiment." 

The  public  enthusiastically  applauded  these  words,  which 
ended  the  lecture  : 

"  No,  there  is  now  no  circumstance  known  in  which  it  can  be 
affirmed  that  microscopic  beings  came  into  the  world  without 
germs,  without  parents  similar  to  themselves.  Those  who 
affirm  it  have  been  duped  by  illusions,  by  ill-conducted  experi- 
ments, spoilt  by  errors  that  they  either  did  not  perceive  or  did 
not  know  how  to  avoid." 

In  the  meanwhile,  besides  public  lectures  and  new  studies, 
Pasteur  succeeded  in  "administering"  the  Ecole  Normale  in 
the  most  complete  sense  of  the  word.  His  influence  was.  such 
that  students  acquired  not  a  taste  but  a  passion  for  study ;  he 
directed  each  one  in  his  own  line,  he  awakened  their  instincts. 
It  was  already  through  his  wise  inspiration  that  five  "  Nor- 
maliens  agreges  "  should  have  the  chance  of  the  five  curators' 
places ;  but  his  solicitude  did  not  stop  there.  If  some  disap- 
pointment befell  some  former  pupil,  still  in  that  period  of  youth 
which  doubts  nothing  or  nobody,  he  came  vigorously  to  his 
assistance ;  he  was  the  counsellor  of  the  future.  A  few  letters 
will  show  how  he  understood  his  responsibility. 

A  Normalien,  Paul  Dalimier,  received  1st  at  the  agregation 
of  Physics  in  1858,  afterwards  Natural  History  curator  at  the 
Ecole,  and  who,  having  taken  his  doctor's  degree,  asked  to  be 
sent  to  a  Faculty,  was  ordered  to  go  to  the  Lycee  of  Chaumont. 

In  the  face  of  this  almost  disgrace  he  wrote  a  despairing 
letter  to  Pasteur.  He  could  do  nothing  more,  he  said,  his  career 
was  ruined.  ' '  My  dear  sir,"  answered  Pasteur,  ' '  I  much  regret 
that  I  could  not  see  you  before  your  departure  for  Chaumont. 
But  here  is  the  advice  which  I  feel  will  be  useful  to  you.  Do 
not  manifest  your  just  displeasure ;  but  attract  attention  from 
the  very  first  by  your  zeal  and  talent.  In  a  word,  aggravate, 
by  your  fine  discharge  of  your  new  duties,  the  injustice  which 
has  been  committed.     The  discouragement  expressed  in  your 


110  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

last  letter  is  not  worthy  of  a  man  of  science.  Keep  but  three 
objects  before  your  eyes  :  your  class,  your  pupils  and  the  work 
you  have  begun.  ...  Do  your  duty  to  the  best  of  your  abihty. 
without  troubling  about  the  rest." 

Pasteur  undertook  the  rest  himself.  He  went  to  the  Ministry 
to  complain  of  the  injustice  and  unfairness,  from  a  general  point 
of  view,  of  that  nomination. 

"  Sir,"  answered  the  Chaumont  exile,  "  I  have  received  your 
kind  letter.  My  deep  respect  for  every  word  of  yours  will 
guarantee  my  intention  to  follow  your  advice.  I  have  given 
myself  up  entirely  to  my  class.  I  have  found  here  a  Physics 
cabinet  in  a  deplorable  state,  and  I  have  undertaken  to  re- 
organise it." 

He  had  not  time  to  finish  :  justice  was  done,  and  Paul  Dalimier 
was  made  maitre  des  conferences  at  the  Ecole  Normale.  He 
died  at  twenty -eight. 

The  wish  that  masters  and  pupils  should  remain  in  touch 
with  each  other  after  the  three  years  at  the  Ecole  Normale  had 
already  in  1859  inspired  Pasteur  to  write  a  report  on  the  desir- 
ableness of  an  annual  report  entitled,  Scientific  Annals  of  the 
Ecole  Normale. 

The  initiative  of  pregnant  ideas  often  is  traced  back  to 
France.  But,  through  want  of  tenacity,  she  allows  those  same 
ideas  to  fall  into  decay  and  they  are  taken  up  by  other  nations, 
transplanted,  developed,  until  they  come  back  unrecognized  to 
their  mother  country.  Germany  had  seen  the  possibilities  of 
such  a  publication  as  Pasteur's  projected  Annals.  Eenan  wrote 
about  that  time  to  the  editors  of  the  Revue  Germanique,  a 
Review  intended  to  draw  France  and  Germany  together  :  "  In 
France,  nothing  is  made  public  until  achieved  and  ripened. 
In  Germany,  a  work  is  given  out  provisionally,  not  as  a  teach- 
ing, but  as  an  incitement  to  think,  as  a  ferment  for  the  mind." 

Pasteur  felt  all  the  power  of  that  intellectual  ferment.  In 
the  volume  entitled  Centenary  of  the  Ecole  'Normale,  M.  Gernez 
has  recalled  Pasteur's  enthusiasm  when  he  spoke  of  those 
Annals.  Was  it  not  for  former  pupils,  away  in  the  provinces, 
a  means  of  collaborating  with  their  old  masters  and  of  keep- 
ing in  touch  with  Paris? 

It  was  in  June,  1864,  that  Pasteur  presented  the  first 
number  of  this  publication  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences.  M. 
Gernez,  who  was  highly  thought  of  by  Pasteur,  has  not  related 
in  the  Centenary  that  the  book  opened  with  some  of  his  own 


1860—1864  111 

researches  on  the  rotatory  power  of  certain  Hquids  and  their 
steam. 

At  that  same  time,  the  heterogenists  had  at  last  placed  them- 
selves at  the  disposal  of  the  Academic  and  were  invited  to  meet 
Pasteur  before  the  Natural  History  Commission  at  M. 
Chevreul's  laboratory.  "I  affirm,"  said  Pasteur,  "that  in 
any  place  it  is  possible  to  take  up  from  the  ambient  atmosphere 
a  determined  volume  of  air  containing  neither  egg  nor  spore 
and  producing  no  generation  in  putrescible  solutions."  The 
Commission  declared  that,  the  whole  contest  bearing  upon  one 
simple  fact,  one  experiment  only  should  take  place.  The 
heterogenists  wanted  to  recommence  a  whole  series  of  experi- 
ments, thus  reopening  the  discussion.  The  Commission  re- 
fused, and  the  heterogenists,  unwilling  to  concede  the  point, 
retired  from  the  field,  repudiating  the  arbiters  that  they  had 
themselves  chosen. 

And  yet  Joly  had  written  to  the  Academic,  "  If  one  only 
of  our  flasks  remains  pure,  we  will  loyally  own  our  defeat." 
A  scientist  who  later  became  Permanent  Secretary  of  the 
Academic  des  Sciences,  Jamin,  wrote  about  this  conflict  : 
' '  The  heterogenists ,  however  they  may  have  coloured  their 
retreat,  have  condemned  themselves.  If  they  had  been  sure 
of  the  fact — which  they  had  solemnly  engaged  to  prove  or  to 
own  themselves  vanquished, — they  would  have  insisted  on 
showing  it,  it  would  have  been  the  triumph  of  their  doctrine." 

The  heterogenists  appealed  to  the  public.  A  few  days  after 
their  defeat,  Joly  gave  a  lecture  at  the  Faculty  of  Medicine. 
He  called  the  trial,  as  decided  on  by  the  Commission,  a  "  circus 
competition  "  ;  he  was  applauded  by  those  who  saw  other  than 
scientific  questions  in  the  matter.  The  problem  was  now 
coming  down  from  mountains  and  laboratories  into  the  arena  of 
society  discussions .  If  all  comes  from  a  germ ,  people  said ,  whence 
came  the  first  germ?  We  must  bow  before  that  mystery, 
said  Pasteur;  it  is  the  question  of  the  origin  of  all  things,  and 
absolutely  outside  the  domain  of  scientific  research.  But  an 
invincible  curiosity  exists  amongst  most  men  which  cannot 
admit  that  science  should  have  the  wisdom  to  content  itself 
with  the  vast  space  between  the  beginning  of  the  world  and 
the  unknown  future.  Many  people  transform  a  question  of 
fact  into  a  question  of  faith.  Though  Pasteur  had  brought  into 
his  researches  a  solely  scientific  preoccupation,  many  people 
approved  or  blamed  him  as  the  defender  of  a  religious  cause. 


112  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Vainly  had  he  said,  "  There  is  here  no  question  of  rehgion, 
philosophy,  atheism,  materialism,  or  spiritualism.  I  might 
even  add  that  they  do  not  matter  to  me  as  a  scientist.  It  is  a 
question  of  fact ;  when  I  took  it  up  I  was  as  ready  to  be  con- 
vinced by  experiments  that  spontaneous  generation  exists  as 
I  am  now  persuaded  that  those  who  believe  it  are  blind- 
folded." 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  Pasteur's  arguments  were 
in  support  of  a  philosophical  theory !  It  seemed  impossible 
to  those  whose  ideas  came  from  an  ardent  faith,  from  the 
influence  of  their  surroundings,  from  personal  pride  or  from 
interested  calculations  to  understand  that  a  man  should  seek 
truth  for  its  own  sake  and  with  no  other  object  than  to  pro- 
claim it.  Hostilities  were  opened,  journalists  kept  up  the  fire. 
A  priest,  the  Abbe  Moigno  spoke  of  converting  unbelievers 
through  the  proved  non-existence  of  spontaneous  generation. 
The  celebrated  novelist,  Edmond  About,  took  up  Pouchet's 
cause  with  sparkling  irony.  "  M.  Pasteur  preached  at  the 
Sorbonne  amidst  a  concert  of  applause  which  must  have  glad- 
dened the  angels." 

Thus,  among  the  papers  and  reviews  of  that  time  we  can 
follow  the  divers  ideas  brought  out  by  these  discussions. 
Guizot,  then  almost  eighty,  touched  on  this  problem  with  the 
slightly  haughty  assurance  of  one  conscious  of  having  given 
much  thought  to  his  behefs  and  destiny.  "  Man  has  not  been 
formed  through  spontaneous  generation,  that  is  by  a  creative 
and  organizing  force  inherent  in  matter ;  scientific  observa- 
tion daily  overturns  that  theory,  by  which,  moreover,  it  is  im- 
possible to  explain  the  first  appearance  upon  the  earth  of  man 
in  his  complete  state."  And  he  praised  "  M.  Pasteur,  who 
has  brought  into  this  question  the  light  of  his  scrupulous 
criticism." 

Nisard  was  a  wondering  witness  of  what  took  place  in  the 
small  laboratory  of  the  Ecole  Normale.  Ever  preoccupied  by 
the  relations  between  science  and  religion,  he  heard  with  some 
surprise  Pasteur  saying  modestly,  "  Researches  on  primary 
causes  are  not  in  the  domain  of  Science,  which  only  recognizes 
facts  and  phenomena  which  it  can  demonstrate." 

Pasteur  did  not  disinterest  himself  from  the  great  problems 
which  he  called  the  eternal  subjects  of  men's  solitary  medita- 
tions. But  he  did  not  admit  the  interference  of  religion  with 
science  any  more  than  that  of  science  with  religion. 


1860—1864  113 

His  eagerness  during  a  conflict  was  only  equalled  by  his 
absolute  forgetfulness  after  the  conflict  was  over.  He 
answered  some  one  who,  years  later,  reminded  him  of  that 
past  so  full  of  attacks  and  praises.  "  A  man  of  science  should 
think  of  what  will  be  said  of  him  in  the  following  century,  not 
of  the  insults  or  the  compliments  of  one  day." 

Pasteur,  anxious  to  regain  lost  time,  hurried  to  return  to  his 
studies  on  wine.  "  Might  not  the  diseases  of  wines,"  he  said 
at  the  Academie  des  Sciences  in  January,  1864,  "be  caused 
by  organized  ferments,  microscopic  vegetations,  of  which  the 
germs  would  develop  when  certain  circumstances  of  tempera- 
ture, of  atmospheric  variations,  of  exposure  to  air,  would 
favour  their  evolution  or  their  introduction  into  wines?  .  .  . 
I  have  indeed  reached  this  result  that  the  alterations  of  wines 
are  co-existent  with  the  presence  and  multiplication  of  micro- 
scopic vegetations."  Acid  wines,  bitter  wines,  "  ropy  "  wines, 
sour  wines,  he  had  studied  them  all  with  a  microscope,  his 
surest  guide  in  recognizing  the  existence  and  form  of  the  evil. 

As  he  had  more  particularly  endeavoured  to  remedy  the  cause 
of  the  acidity  which  often  ruins  the  Jura  red  or  white  wines 
in  the  wood,  the  town  of  Arbois,  proud  of  its  celebrated  rosy 
and  tawny  wines,  placed  an  impromptu  laboratory  at  his 
disposal  during  the  holidays  of  1864 ;  the  expenses  were  all  to 
be  covered  by  the  town.  "  This  spontaneous  offer  from  a  town 
dear  to  me  for  so  many  reasons,"  answered  Pasteur  to  the 
Mayor  and  Town  Council,  "  does  too  much  honour  to  my 
modest  labours ,  and  the  way  in  which  it  is  made  covers  me  with 
confusion."  He  refused  it  however,  fearing  that  the  services 
he  might  render  should  not  be  proportionate  to  the  generosity 
of  the  Council.  He  preferred  to  camp  out  with  his  curators 
in  an  old  coffee  room  at  the  entrance  of  the  town,  and  they 
contented  themselves  with  apparatus  of  the  most  primitive 
description,  generally  made  by  some  local  tinker  or  shoeing 
smith. 

The  problem  consisted,  in  Pasteur's  view,  in  opposing  the 
development  of  organized  ferments  or  parasitic  vegetations, 
causes  of  the  diseases  of  wines.  After  some  fruitless  endea- 
vours to  destroy  all  vitality  in  the  germs  of  these  parasites, 
he  found  that  it  was  sufficient  to  keep  the  wine  for  a  few 
moments  at  a  temperature  of  50°  C.  to  60°  C.  "I  have  also 
ascertained  that  wine  was  never  altered  by  that  preliminary 
operation,  and  as  nothing  prevents  it  afterwards  from  under- 

I 


114  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

going  the  gradual  action  of  the  oxygen  in  the  air — the  only 
cause,  as  I  think,  of  its  improvement  with  age — it  is  evident 
that  this  process  offers  every  advantage." 

It  seems  as  if  that  simple  and  practical  means,  applicable 
to  every  quality  of  veine,  now  only  had  to  be  tried.  But  not  so. 
Every  progress  is  opposed  by  prejudice,  petty  jealousies,  in- 
dolence even.  A  devoted  obstinacy  is  required  in  order  to 
overcome  this  opposition.  Pasteur's  desire  was  that  his 
country  should  benefit  by  his  discovery.  An  Englishman  had 
written  to  him  :  "  People  are  astonished  in  France  that  the 
sale  of  French  wines  should  not  have  become  more  extended 
here  since  the  Commercial  Treaties.  The  reason  is  simple 
enough.  At  first  we  eagerly  welcomed  those  wines,  but  we 
soon  had  the  sad  experience  that  there  was  too  much  loss 
occasioned  by  the  diseases  to  which  they  are  subject." 

Pasteur  was  in  the  midst  of  those  discussions,  experimental 
sittings,  etc.,  when  J.  B.  Dumas  suddenly  asked  of  him  the 
greatest  of  sacrifices,  that  of  leaving  the  laboratory. 


CHAPTEB    VI 

1865—1870 

An  epidemic  was  ruining  in  terrible  proportions  the  industry 
of  the  cultivation  of  silkworms.  J.  B.  Dumas  had  been  desired, 
as  Senator,  to  draw  up  a  report  on  the  wishes  of  over  3,500 
proprietors  in  sericicultural  departments,  all  begging  the  public 
authorities  to  study  the  question  of  the  causes  of  the  pro- 
tracted epidemic.  Dumas  was  all  the  more  preoccupied  as 
to  the  fate  of  sericiculture  that  he  himself  came  from  one  of 
the  stricken  departments.  He  was  born  on  July  14,  1800, 
in  one  of  the  back  streets  of  the  town  of  Alais,  to  which  he 
enjoyed  returning  as  a  celebrated  scientist  and  a  dignitary  of 
the  Empire.  He  gave  much  attention  to  all  the  problems 
which  interested  the  national  prosperity  and  considered  that 
the  best  judges  in  these  matters  were  the  men  of  science.  He 
well  knew  the  conscientious  tenacity — besides  other  character- 
istics— which  his  pupil  and  friend  brought  into  any  under- 
taking, and  anxiously  urged  him  to  undertake  this  study. 
"Your  proposition,"  wrote  Pasteur  in  a  few  hurried  lines, 
' '  throws  me  into  a  great  perplexity ;  it  is  indeed  most  flatter- 
ing and  the  object  is  a  high  one,  but  it  troubles  and  em- 
barrasses me  !  Eemember,  if  you  please,  that  I  have  never 
even  touched  a  silkworm.  If  I  had  some  of  your  knowledge 
on  the  subject  I  should  not  hesitate ;  it  may  even  come  within 
the  range  of  my  present  studies.  However,  the  recollection  of 
your  many  kindnesses  to  me  would  leave  me  bitter  regrets  if  I 
were  to  decline  your  pressing  invitation.  Do  as  you  like  with 
me."  On  May  17, 1865,  Dumas  wrote  :  "  I  attach  the  greatest 
value  to  seeing  your  attention  fixed  on  the  question  which 
interests  my  poor  country ;  the  distress  is  beyond  anything 
you  can  imagine." 

Before  his  departure  for  Alais,  Pasteur  had  read  an  essay 
on  the  history  of  the  silkworm,  published  by  one  of  his  ool- 

I  2 


116  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

leagues,  Quatrefages,  born  like  Dumas  in  the  Gard.  Quatre- 
fages  attributed  to  an  Empress  of  China  the  first  knowledge 
of  the  art  of  utilizing  silk,  more  than  4,000  years  ago.  The 
Chinese,  in  possession  of  the  precious  insect,  had  jealously 
preserved  the  monopoly  of  its  culture,  even  to  the  point  of 
making  it  a  capital  offence  to  take  beyond  the  frontiers  of  the 
Empire  the  eggs  of  the  silkworm.  A  young  princess,  2,000 
years  later,  had  the  courage  to  infringe  this  law  for  love  of 
her  betrothed,  whom  she  was  going  to  join  in  the  centre  of 
Asia,  and  also  through  the  almost  equally  strong  desire  to 
continue  her  fairy -like  occupation  after  her  marriage. 

Pasteur  appreciated  the  pretty  legend,  but  was  more  in- 
terested in  the  history  of  the  acclimatizing  of  the  mulberry 
tree.  From  Provence  Louis  XI  took  it  to  Touraine  :  Catherine 
de  Medici  planted  it  in  Orleanais.  Henry  IV  had  some  mul- 
berry trees  planted  in  the  park  at  Fontainebleau  and  in  the 
Tuileries  where  they  succeeded  admirably.  He  also  en- 
couraged a  Treatise  on  the  Gathering  of  Silk  by  Olivier  de 
Serres.  This  earliest  agricultural  writer  in  France  was  much 
appreciated  by  the  king,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  Sully, 
who  did  not  believe  in  this  new  fortune  for  France.  Docu- 
mentary evidence  is  lacking  as  to  the  development  of  the  silk 
industry. 

From  1700  to  1788,  wrote  Quatrefages,  France  produced 
annually  about  6,000,000  kilogrammes  of  cocoons.  This  was 
decreased  by  one-half  under  the  Eepublic ;  wool  replaced  silk 
perhaps  from  necessity,  perhaps  from  affectation. 

Napoleon  I  restored  that  luxury.  The  sericicultural  industry 
prospered  from  the  Imperial  Epoch  until  the  reign  of  Louis 
Philippe,  to  such  an  extent  as  to  reach  in  one  year  a  total  of 
20,000,000  kilogrammes  of  cocoons,  representing  100,000,000 
francs.  The  name  of  Tree  of  Gold  given  to  the  mulberry,  had 
never  been  better  deserved. 

Suddenly  all  these  riches  fell  away.  A  mysterious  disease 
was  destroying  the  nurseries.  "Eggs,  worms,  chrysalides, 
moths,  the  disease  may  manifest  itself  in  all  the  organs," 
wrote  Dumas  in  his  report  to  the  Senate.  "Whence  does  it 
come?  how  is  it  contracted?  No  one  knows.  But  its  inva- 
sion is  recognized  by  little  brown  or  black  spots."  It  was 
therefore  called  "corpuscle  disease";  it  was  also  designated 
as  "  gattine  "  from  the  Italian  gattino,  kitten  ;  the  sick  worms 
held  up  their  heads  and  put  out  their  hooked  feet  like  cats  about 


1865—1870  117 

'to  scratch.  But  of  all  those  names,  that  of  "  pebrine " 
adopted  by  Quatrefages  was  the  most  general.  It  came  from 
the  patois  word  pebre  (pepper).  The  spots  on  the  diseased 
worms  were,  in  fact,  rather  like  pepper  grains. 

The  first  symptoms  had  been  noticed  by  some  in  1845,  by 
others  in  1847.  But  in  1849  it  was  a  disaster.  The  South  of 
France  was  invaded.  In  1853,  seed  had  to  be  procured  from 
Lombardy.  After  one  successful  year  the  same  disappoint- 
ments recurred.  Italy  was  attacked,  also  Spain  and  Austria. 
Seed  was  procured  from  Greece,  Turkey,  the  Caucasus,  but 
the  evil  was  still  on  the  increase;  China  itself  was  attacked, 
and,  in  1864,  it  was  only  in  Japan  that  healthy  seed  could  be 
found. 

Every  hypothesis  was  suggested,  atmospheric  conditions, 
degeneration  of  the  race  of  silkworms,  disease  of  the  mulberry 
tree,  etc. — books  and  treatises  abounded,  but  in  vain. 

When  Pasteur  started  for  Alais  (June  16,  1865),  entrusted 
with  this  scientific  mission  by  the  Minister  of  Agriculture,  his 
mind  saw  but  that  one  point  of  interrogation,  "  What  caused 
these  fatal  spots  ?  "  On  his  arrival  he  sympathetically  ques- 
tioned the  Alaisians.  He  received  confused  and  contradictory 
answers,  indications  of  chimerical  remedies;  some  cultivators 
poured  sulphur  or  charcoal  powder  on  the  worms,  some  mus- 
tard meal  or  castor  sugar;  ashes  and  soot  were  used,  quinine 
powders,  etc.  Some  cultivators  preferred  liquids,  and  syringed 
the  mulberry  leaves  with  wine,  rum  or  absinthe.  Fumiga- 
tions of  chlorine,  of  coal  tar,  were  approved  by  some  and 
violently  objected  to  by  others.  Pasteur,  more  desirous  of 
seeking  the  origin  of  the  evil  than  of  making  a  census  of  these 
remedies,  unceasingly  questioned  the  nursery  owners,  who  in- 
variably answered  that  it  was  something  like  the  plague  or 
cholera.  Some  worms  languished  on  the  frames  in  their  earliest 
days,  others  in  the  second  stage  only,  some  passed  through  the 
third  and  fourth  moultings,  climbed  the  twig  and  spun  their 
cocoon.  The  chrysalis  became  a  moth,  but  that  diseased  moth  had 
deformed  antennas  and  withered  legs,  the  wings  seemed  singed. 
Eggs  (technically  called  seed)  from  those  moths  were  inevitably 
unsuccessful  the  following  year.  Thus,  in  the  same  nursery, 
in  the  course  of  the  two  months  that  a  larva  takes  to  become 
a  moth,  the  pebrine  disease  was  alternately  sudden  or  in- 
sidious :  it  burst  out  or  disappeared,  it  hid  itself  within  the 
chrysalis  and  reappeared  in  the  moth  or  the  eggs  of  a  moth 


118  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

which  had  seemed  sound.     The  discouraged  Alaisians  thought 
that  nothing  could  overcome  pebrine. 

Pasteur  did  not  admit  such  resignation.  But  he  began  by 
one  aspect  only  of  the  problem.  He  resolved  to  submit  those 
corpuscles  of  the  silkworm  which  had  been  observed  since  1849 
to  microscopical  study.  He  settled  down  in  a  small  magna- 
nerie  near  Alais  ;  two  series  of  worms  were  being  cultivated. 
The  first  set  was  full  grown ;  it  came  from  some  Japanese  seed 
guaranteed  as  sound,  and  had  produced  very  fine  cocoons.  The 
cultivator  intended  to  keep  the  seed  of  the  moths  to  compensate 
himself  for  the  failure  of  the  second  set,  also  of  Japanese 
origin,  but  not  officially  guaranteed.  The  worms  of  this  second 
series  were  sickly  and  did  not  feed  properly.  And  yet  these 
worms,  seen  through  the  microscope,  only  exceptionally  pre- 
sented corpuscles ;  whilst  Pasteur  was  surprised  to  find  some 
in  almost  every  moth  or  chrysalis  from  the  prosperous  nursery. 
Was  it  then  elsewhere  than  in  the  worms  that  the  secret  of 
the  pebrine  was  to  be  found? 

Pasteur  was  interrupted  in  the  midst  of  his  experiments  by 
a  sudden  blow.  Nine  days  after  his  arrival,  a  telegram  called 
him  to  Arbois  :  his  father  was  very  ill.  He  started,  full  of 
anguish,  remembering  the  sudden  death  of  his  mother  before 
he  had  had  time  to  reach  her,  and  that  of  Jeanne,  his  eldest 
daughter,  who  had  also  died  far  away  from  him  in  the  little 
house  at  Arbois.  His  sad  presentiment  oppressed  him  during 
the  whole  of  the  long  journey,  and  was  fully  justified;  he 
arrived  to  find,  already  in  his  coffin,  the  father  he  so  dearly 
loved  and  whose  name  he  had  made  an  illustrious  one. 

In  the  evening,  in  the  empty  room  above  the  tannery, 
Pasteur  wrote  :  "Dear  Marie,  dear  children,  the  dear  grand- 
father is  no  more  ;  we  have  taken  him  this  morning  to  his  last 
resting  place,  close  to  little  Jeanne's.  In  the  midst  of  my 
grief  I  have  felt  thankful  that  our  little  girl  had  been  buried 
there.  .  .  .  Until  the  last  moment  I  hoped  I  should  see  him 
again,  embrace  him  for  the  last  time  .  .  .  but  when  I 
arrived  at  the  station  I  saw  some  of  our  cousins  all  in  black, 
coming  from  Salins ;  it  was  only  then  that  I  understood  that  I 
could  but  accompany  him  to  the  grave. 

"  He  died  on  the  day  of  your  first  communion,  dear  C^cile ; 
those  two  memories  will  remain  in  your  heart,  my  poor  child. 
I  had  a  presentiment  of  it  when  that  very  morning,  at  the 
hour  when  he  was  struck  down,  I  was  asking  you  to  pray  for 


1865—1870  119 

the  grandfather  at  Arbois.  Your  prayers  will  have  been  accept- 
able unto  God,  and  perhaps  the  dear  grandfather  himself  knew 
of  them  and  rejoiced  with  dear  little  Jeanne  over  Cecile's 
piety. 

' '  I  have  been  thinking  all  day  of  the  marks  of  affection  I 
have  had  from  my  father.  For  thirty  years  I  have  been  his 
constant  care,  I  owe  everything  to  him.  When  I  was  young 
he  kept  me  from  bad  company  and  instilled  into  me  the  habit 
of  working  and  the  example  of  the  most  loyal  and  best-filled 
life.  He  was  far  above  his  position  both  in  mind  and  in  char- 
acter. .  .  .  You  did  not  know  him,  dearest  Marie,  at  the 
time  when  he  and  my  mother  were  working  so  hard  for  the 
children  they  loved,  for  me  especially, whose  books  and  school- 
ing cost  so  much.  .  .  .  And  the  touching  part  of  his  affec- 
tion for  me  is  that  it  never  was  mixed  with  ambition.  You 
remember  that  he  would  have  been  pleased  to  see  me  the  head- 
master of  Arbois  College?  He  foresaw  that  advancement 
would  mean  hard  work,  perhaps  detrimental  to  my  health. 
And  yet  I  am  sure  that  some  of  the  success  in  my  scientific 
career  must  have  filled  him  with  joy  and  pride  ;  his  son  !  his 
name !  the  child  he  had  guided  and  cherished !  My  dear 
father,  how  thankful  I  am  that  I  could  give  him  some  satis- 
faction ! 

"Farewell,  dearest  Marie,  dear  children.  We  shall  often 
talk  of  the  dear  grandfather.  How  glad  I  am  that  he  saw  you 
all  again  a  short  time  ago,  and  that  he  lived  to  know  little 
Camille.  I  long  to  see  you  all,  but  must  go  back  to  Alais,  for 
my  studies  would  be  retarded  by  a  year  if  I  could  not  spend 
a  few  days  there  now. 

"  I  have  some  ideas  on  this  disease,  which  is  indeed  a  scourge 
for  all  those  southern  departments.  The  one  arrondissement 
of  Alais  has  lost  an  income  of  120,000,000  francs  during  the 
last  fifteen  years.  M.  Dumas  is  a  million  times  right ;  it  must 
be  seen  to,  and  I  am  going  to  continue  my  experiments.  I  am 
writing  to  M.  Nisard  to  have  the  admission  examinations  in  my 
absence,  which  can  easily  be  done." 

Nisard  wrote  to  him  (June  19)  :  "  My  dear  friend,  I  heard 
of  your  loss,  and  I  sympathize  most  cordially  with  you.  .  .  . 
Take  all  the  time  necessary  to  you.  You  are  away  in  the 
service  of  science,  probably  of  humanity.  Everything  will  be 
done  according  to  your  precise  indications.  I  foresee  no 
difficulty    .    .    .    everything  is  going  on  well  at  the   Ecole. 


120  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

In  spite  of  your  reserve— which  is  a  part  of  your  talent— I  see 
that  you  are  on  the  track,  as  M.  Biot  would  have  said,  and 
that  you  will  have  your  prey.  Your  name  will  stand  next  to 
that  of  Olivier  de  Serres  in  the  annals  of  sericiculture." 

On  his  return  to  Alais  Pasteur  went  back  to  his  observations 
with  his  scientific  ardour  and  his  customary  generous  eagerness 
to  lighten  the  burden  of  others.  He  wrote  in  the  introduction 
to  his  Studies  on  Silkworm  Disease  the  following  heartfelt 
lines — 

"  A  traveller  coming  back  to  the  Cevennes  mountains  after 
an  absence  of  fifteen  years  would  be  saddened  to  see  the  change 
wrought  in  that  countryside  within  such  a  short  time.  For- 
merly he  might  have  seen  robust  men  breaking  up  the  rock 
to  build  terraces  against  the  side  and  up  to  the  summit  of  each 
mountain ;  then  planting  mulberry  trees  on  these  terraces. 
These  men,  in  spite  of  their  hard  work,  were  then  bright  and 
happy,  for  ease  and  contentment  reigned  in  their  homes. 

"  Now  the  mulberry  plantations  are  abandoned,  the  '  golden 
tree  '  no  longer  enriches  the  country,  faces  once  beaming  with 
health  and  good  humour  are  now  sad  and  drawn.  Distress 
and  hunger  have  succeeded  to  comfort  and  happiness." 

Pasteur  thought  with  sorrow  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Cevenol 
populations.  The  scientific  problem  was  narrowing  itself 
down.  Faced  by  the  contradictory  facts  that  one  successful 
set  of  cocoons  had  produced  corpuscled  moths,  while  an  ap- 
parently unsuccessful  set  of  worms  showed  neither  corpuscles 
nor  spots,  he  had  aw^aited  the  last  period  of  these  worms  with 
an  impatient  curiosity.  He  saw,  amongst  those  which  had 
started  spinning,  some  which  as  yet  showed  no  spots  and  no 
corpuscles.  But  corpuscles  were  abundant  in  the  chrysalides, 
those  especially  which  were  in  full  maturity,  on  the  eve  of  be- 
coming moths;  and  none  of  the  moths  were  free  from  them. 
Perhaps  the  fact  that  the  disease  appeared  in  the  chrysalis  and 
moth  only  explained  the  failures  of  succeeding  series.  "It 
was  a  mistake,"  wrote  Pasteur  (June  26,  1865),  "to  look  for 
the  symptom,  the  corpuscle,  exclusively  in  the  eggs  or  the 
worms ;  either  might  carry  in  themselves  the  germ  of  the 
disease,  without  presenting  distinct  and  microscopically  visible 
corpuscles.  The  evil  developed  itself  chiefly  in  the  chrysalides 
and  the  moths,,  it  was  there  that  it  should  chiefly  be  sought. 
There  should  be  an  infallible  means  of  procuring  healthy  seed 
by  having  recourse  to  moths  free  from  corpuscles." 


1865—1870  121 

This  idea  was  like  a  searchlight  flashed  into  the  darkness. 
Pasteur  thus  formulated  his  hypothesis:  "Every  moth  con- 
taining corpuscles  must  give  birth  to  diseased  seed.  If  a 
moth  only  has  a  few  corpuscles,  its  eggs  will  provide  worms 
without  any,  or  which  will  only  develop  them  towards  the  end 
of  their  life.  If  the  moth  is  much  infected,  the  disease  will 
show  itself  in  the  earliest  stages  of  the  worm,  either  by 
corpuscles  or  by  other  unhealthy  symptoms." 

Pasteur  studied  hundreds  of  moths  under  the  microscope. 
Nearly  all,  two  or  three  couples  excepted,  were  corpuscled,  but 
that  restricted  quantity  was  increased  by  a  precious  gift.  Two 
people,  who  had  heard  Pasteur  ventilate  his  theories,  brought 
him  five  moths  born  of  a  local  race  of  silkworms  and  nurtured 
in  the  small  neighbouring  town  of  Anduze  in  the  Turkish 
fashion,  i.e.  without  any  of  the  usual  precautions  consisting  in 
keeping  the  worms  in  nurseries  heated  at  an  equal  temperature. 
Everything  having  been  tried,  this  system  had  also  had  its 
turn,  without  any  appreciable  success.  By  a  fortunate  cir- 
cumstance, four  out  of  those  five  moths  were  healthy. 

Pasteur  looked  forward  to  the  study  in  comparisons  that 
the  following  spring  would  bring  when  worms  were  hatched 
both  from  the  healthy  and  the  diseased  seed.  In  the  mean- 
while, only  a  few  of  the  x\laisians,  including  M.  Pages,  the 
Mayor,  and  M.  de  Lachadenede,  really  felt  any  confidence  in 
these  results.  Most  of  the  other  silkworm  cultivators  were  dis- 
posed to  criticize  everything,  without  having  the  patience  to 
wait  for  results.  They  expressed  much  regret  that  the  Govern- 
ment should  choose  a  ' '  mere  chemist ' '  for  those  investigations 
instead  of  some  zoologist  or  silkworm  cultivator.  Pasteur  only 
eaid,  "Have  patience." 

He  returned  to  Paris,  where  fresh  sorrow  awaited  him  : 
Camille,  his  youngest  child,  only  two  years  old,  was  seriously 
ill.  He  watched  over  her  night  after  night,  spending  his  days 
at  his  task  in  the  laboratory,  and  returning  in  the  evening  to 
the  bedside  of  his  dying  child.  During  that  same  period  he 
was  asked  for  an  article  on  Lavoisier  by  J.  B.  Dumas,  who 
had  been  requested  by  the  Government  to  publish  his  works. 

"  No  one,"  wrote  Dumas  to  Pasteur — "  has  read  Lavoisier 
with  more  attention  than  you  have ;  no  one  can  judge  of  him 
better.  .  .  .  The  chance  which  caused  me  to  be  born  before 
you  has  placed  me  in  communication  with  surroundings  and 
with  men  in  whom  I  have  found  the  ideas  and  feelings  which 


122  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

have  guided  me  in  this  work.  But,  had  it  been  yours,  I 
should  have  allovv^ed  no  one  else  to  be  the  first  in  drawing  the 
world's  attention  to  it.  It  is  from  this  motive,  also  from  a 
certain  conformity  of  tastes  and  of  principles  which  has  long 
made  you  dear  to  me,  that  I  now  ask  you  to  give  up  a  few 
hours  to  Lavoisier." 

"My  dear  and  illustrious  master,"  answered  Pasteur  (July 
18,  1865),  "  in  the  face  of  your  letter  and  its  expressions  of 
affectionate  confidence,  I  cannot  refuse  to  submit  to  you  a 
paper  which  you  must  promise  to  throw  away  if  it  should  not 
be  exactly  what  you  want.  I  must  also  ask  you  to  grant  me 
much  time,  partly  on  account  of  my  inexperience,  and  partly 
on  account  of  the  fatigue  both  mental  and  bodily  imposed  on 
me  by  the  illness  of  our  dear  child." 

Dumas  replied  :  "  Dear  friend  and  colleague,  I  thank  you 
for  your  kind  acquiescence  in  Lavoisier's  interests,  which 
might  well  be  your  own,  for  no  one  at  this  time  represents 
better  than  you  do  his  spirit  and  method, — a  method  in  which 
reasoning  had  more  share  than  anything  else. 

' '  The  art  of  observation  and  that  of  experimentation  are 
very  distinct.  In  the  first  case,  the  fact  may  either  proceed 
from  logical  reasons  or  be  mere  good  fortune  ;  it  is  sufficient  to 
have  some  penetration  and  the  sense  of  truth  in  order  to  profit 
by  it.  But  the  art  of  experimentation  leads  from  the  first  to 
the  last  link  of  the  chain,  without  hesitation  and  without  a 
blank,  making  successive  use  of  Eeason,  which  suggests  an 
alternative,  and  of  Experience,  which  decides  on  it,  until, 
starting  from  a  faint  glimmer,  the  full  blaze  of  light  is  reached. 
Lavoisier  made  this  art  into  a  method,  and  you  possess  it  to  a 
degree  which  always  gives  me  a  pleasure  for  which  I  am  grate- 
ful to  you. 

"  Take  your  time.  Lavoisier  has  waited  seventy  years  !  It 
is  a  century  since  his  first  results  were  produced  !  What  are 
weeks  and  months? 

'  *  I  feel  for  you  with  all  my  heart !  I  know  how  heartrend- 
ing are  those  moments  by  the  deathbed  of  a  suffering  child.  I 
hope  and  trust  this  great  sorrow  will  be  spared  you,  as  indeed 
you  deserve  that  it  should  be." 

The  promise  made  by  Dumas  to  give  to  France  an  edition  of 
Lavoisier's  works  dated  very  far  back.  It  was  in  May,  1836, 
in  one  of  his  eloquent  lectures  at  the  College  de  France,  that 
Dumas  had  declared  his  intention  of  raising  a  scientific  monu- 


1865—1870  123 

merit  to  the  memory  of  this,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  French 
scientists.  He  had  hoped  that  a  Bill  would  be  passed  by  the 
Government  of  Louis  Philippe  decreeing  that  this  edition  of 
Lavoisier's  works  would  be  produced  at  the  expense  of  the 
State.  But  the  usual  obstacles  and  formalities  came  in  the 
way.  Governments  succeeded  each  other,  and  it  was  only  in 
1861  that  Dumas  obtained  the  decree  he  wished  for  and  that 
the  book  appeared. 

Certainly  Pasteur  knew  and  admired  as  much  as  any  one  the 
discoveries  of  Lavoisier.  But,  in  the  presence  of  the  series  of 
labours  accomplished,  in  spite  of  many  other  burdens,  during 
that  life  cut  oif  in  its  prime  by  the  Eevolutionary  Tribunal 
(1792),  labours  collated  for  the  first  time  by  Dumas,  Pasteur 
was  filled  with  a  new  and  vivid  emotion.  His  logic  in  reason- 
ing and  his  patience  in  observing  nature  had  in  no  wise 
diminished  the  impetuous  generosity  of  his  feelings  ;  a  beautiful 
book,  a  great  discovery,  a  brilliant  exploit  or  a  humble  act  of 
kindness  would  move  him  to  tears.  Concerning  such  a  man  as 
Lavoisier,  Pasteur's  curiosity  became  a  sort  of  worship.  He 
would  have  had  the  history  of  such  a  life  spread  everywhere. 
"Though  one  discovery  always  surpasses  another,  and  though 
the  chemical  and  physical  knowledge  accumulated  since  his 
time  has  gone  beyond  all  Lavoisier's  dreams,"  wrote  Pasteur, 
"  his  work,  like  that  of  Newton  and  a  few  other  rare  spirits,  will 
remain  ever  young.  Certain  details  will  age,  as  do  the  fashions 
of  another  time,  but  the  foundation,  the  method,  constitute 
one  of  those  great  aspects  of  the  human  mind,  the  majesty 
of  which  is  only  increased  by  years.  ..." 

Pasteur's  article  appeared  in  the  Moniteur  and  was  much 
praised  by  the  celebrated  critic  Sainte  Beuve,  whose  literary 
lectures  were  often  attended  by  Pasteur,  between  1857  and 
1861.  The  chronological  order  that  we  are  following  in  this 
history  of  Pasteur's  life  allows  us  to  follow  the  ideas  and  feel- 
ings with  which  he  lived  his  life  of  hard  daily  work  combined 
with  daily  devotion  to  others.  Joys  and  sorrows  can  be 
chronicled,  thanks  to  the  confidences  of  those  who  loved  him. 
His  fame  is  indeed  part  of  the  future,  but  the  tenderness  which 
he  inspired  revives  the  memories  of  the  past. 

In  September,  1865,  httle  Camille  died,  Pasteur  took  the 
tiny  cof&n  to  Arbois  and  went  back  to  his  work.  A  letter 
written  in  November  alludes  to  the  depth  of  his  grief. 

It   was   a   propos   of   a   candidature   to   the   Academic    des 


124  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Sciences,  Sainte  Beuve  was  asked  to  help  that  of  a  young 
friend  of  his,  Charles  Eobin.  Eobin  occupied  a  professor's 
chair  specially  created  for  him  at  the  Faculte  de  Medecine ;  he 
had  made  a  deep  microscopical  study  of  the  tissues  of  living 
bodies,  of  cellular  life,  of  all  which  constitutes  histology.  He 
was  convinced  that  outside  his  own  studies,  numerous  ques- 
tions would  fall  more  and  more  into  the  domain  of  experimenta- 
tion, and  he  believed  that  the  faith  in  spiritual  things  could 
not  "  stand  the  struggle  against  the  spirit  of  the  times,  wholly 
turned  to  positive  things."  He  did  not,  like  Pasteur,  under- 
stand the  clear  distinction  between  the  scientist  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  man  of  sentiment  on  the  other,  each  absolutely 
independent.  Neither  did  he  imitate  the  reserve  of  Claude 
Bernard  who  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  pressed  by  any 
urgent  questioner  into  enrolment  with  either  the  believers  or 
the  unbelievers,  but  answered:  "When  I  am  in  my  labora- 
tory, I  begin  by  shutting  the  door  on  materialism  and  on 
spiritualism ;  I  observe  facts  alone ;  I  seek  but  the  scientific 
conditions  under  which  life  manifests  itself."  Robin  was  a 
disciple  of  Auguste  Comte,  and  proclaimed  himself  a  Positivist, 
a  word  which  for  superficial  people  was  the  equivalent  of 
materialist.  The  same  efforts  which  had  succeeded  in  keeping 
Littre  out  of  the  Academie  Fran^aise  in  1863  were  now 
attempted  in  order  to  keep  Eobin  out  of  the  Academie  des 
Sciences  in  1865. 

Sainte  Beuve,  whilst  studying  medicine,  had  been  a  Posi- 
tivist ;  his  quick  and  impressionable  nature  had  then  turned  to 
a  mysticism  which  had  inspired  him  to  pen  some  fine  verses. 
He  had  now  returned  to  his  former  philosophy,  but  kept  an 
open  mind,  however,  criticism  being  for  him  not  the  art  of 
dictating,  but  of  understanding,  and  he  was  absolutely  averse 
to  irrelevant  considerations  when  a  candidature  was  in  question. 

The  best  means  with  Pasteur,  who  was  no  diplomat,  was  to 
go  straight  to  the  point.  Sainte  Beuve  therefore  wrote  to  him  : 
"  Dear  Sir,  will  you  allow  me  to  be  indiscreet  enough  to  solicit 
your  influence  in  favour  of  M.  Eobin,  whose  work  I  know  you 
appreciate  ? 

"  M.  Eobin  does  not  perhaps  belong  to  the  same  philo- 
sophical school  as  you  do ;  but  it  seems  to  me — from  an  out- 
sider's point  of  view — that  he  belongs  to  the  same  scientific 
school.  If  he  should  differ  essentially — whether  in  meta- 
physics or  otherwise— would  it  not  be  worthy  of  a  great  scientist 


1865—1870  125 

to  take  none  but  positive  work  into  account?  Nothing  more, 
nothing  less. 

' '  Forgive  me ;  I  have  much  resented  the  injustice  towards 
you  of  certain  newspapers,  and  I  have  sometimes  asked  myself 
if  there  were  not  some  simple  means  of  showing  up  all  that 
nonsense,  and  of  disproving  those  absurd  and  ill-intentioned 
statements.  If  M.  Eobin  deserves  to  be  of  the  Academic  why 
should  he  not  attain  to  it  through  you?    .    .    . 

"  My  sense  of  gratitude  towards  you  for  those  four  years 
during  which  you  have  done  me  the  honour  of  including  such 
a  man  as  you  are  in  my  audience,  also  a  feeling  of  friendship, 
are  carrying  me  too  far.  I  intended  to  mention  this  to  you  the 
other  day  at  the  Princess's;  she  had  wished  me  to  do  so,  but 
I  feel  bolder  with  a  pen.    .    .    ." 

The  Princess  in  question  was  Princess  Mathilde.  Her  salon, 
a  rendezvous  of  men  of  letters,  men  of  science  and  artists,  was 
a  sort  of  second  Academy  which  consoled  Theophile  Gautier 
for  not  belonging  to  the  other.  Sainte  Beuve  prided  himself 
on  being,  so  to  speak,  honorary  secretary  to  this  accomplished 
and  charming  hostess. 

Pasteur  answered  by  return  of  post.  "  Sir  and  illustrious 
colleague,  I  feel  strongly  inclined  towards  M.  Eobin,  who 
would  represent  a  new  scientific  element  at  the  Academy — the 
microscope  applied  to  the  study  of  the  human  organism.  I  do 
not  trouble  about  his  philosophical  school  save  for  the  harm  it 
may  do  to  his  work.  ...  I  confess  frankly,  however,  that 
I  am  not  competent  on  the  question  of  our  philosophical 
schools.  Of  M.  Comte  I  have  only  read  a  few  absurd  passages  ; 
of  M.  Littre  I  only  know  the  beautiful  pages  you  were  in- 
spired to  v^rite  by  his  rare  knowledge  and  some  of  his  domestic 
virtues.  My  philosophy  is  of  the  heart  and  not  of  the  mind, 
and  I  give  myself  up,  for  instance,  to  those  feelings  about 
eternity  which  come  naturally  at  the  bedside  of  a  cherished 
child  drawing  its  last  breath.  At  those  supreme  moments, 
there  is  something  in  the  depths  of  our  souls  which  tells  us 
that  the  world  may  be  more  than  a  mere  combination  of 
phenomena  proper  to  a  mechanical  equilibrium  brought  out 
of  the  chaos  of  the  elements  simply  through  the  gradual  action 
of  the  forces  of  matter.  I  admire  them  all,  our  philosophers  ! 
We  have  experiments  to  straighten  and  modify  our  ideas,  and 
we  constantly  find  that  nature  is  other  than  we  had  imagined. 
They,  who  are  always  guessing,  how  can  they  know!    ,    .    e" 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Sainte  Beuve  was  probably  not  astonished  at  Pasteur's  some- 
what hasty  epithet  appHed  to  Auguste  Comte,  whom  he  had 
himself  defined  as  "  an  obscure,  abstruse,  often  diseased  brain." 
After  Robin's  election  he  wrote  to  his  "dear  and  learned  col- 
league " — 

"  I  have  not  allowed  myself  to  thank  you  for  the  letter,  so 
beautiful,  if  I  may  say  so,  so  deep  and  so  exalted  in  thought, 
which  you  did  me  the  honour  of  writing  in  answer  to  mine. 
Nothing  now  forbids  me  to  tell  you  how  deeply  I  am  struck 
with  your  way  of  thinking  and  with  your  action  in  this 
scientific  matter." 

That  "something  in  the  depths  of  our  souls"  of  which 
Pasteur  spoke  in  his  letter  to  Sainte  Beuve,  was  often  per- 
ceived in  his  conversation ;  absorbed  as  he  was  in  his 
daily  task,  he  yet  carried  in  himself  a  constant  aspiration 
towards  the  Ideal,  a  deep  conviction  of  the  reality  of  the 
Infinite  and  a  trustful  acquiescence  in  the  Mystery  of  the 
universe. 

During  the  last  term  of  the  year  1865,  he  turned  from  his 
work  for  a  time  in  order  to  study  cholera.  Coming  from  Egypt, 
the  scourge  had  lighted  on  Marseilles,  then  on  Paris,  wBere  it 
made  in  October  more  than  two  hundred  victims  per  day  ;  it 
was  feared  that  the  days  of  1832  would  be  repeated,  when  the 
deaths  reached  twenty-three  per  1,000.  Claude  Bernard, 
Pasteur,  and  Sainte  Claire  Deville  went  into  the  attics  of  the 
Lariboisiere  hospital,  above  a  cholera  ward. 

"We  had  opened,"  said  Pasteur,  "one  of  the  ventilators 
communicating  with  the  ward  ;  we  had  adapted  to  the  opening 
a  glass  tube  surrounded  by  a  refrigerating  mixture,  and  we 
drew  the  air  of  the  ward  into  our  tube,  so  as  to  condense 
into  it  as  many  as  we  could  of  the  products  of  the  air  in  the 
ward." 

Claude  Bernard  and  Pasteur  afterwards  tried  blood  taken 
from  patients,  and  many  other  things  ;  they  were  associated  in 
those  experiments,  which  gave  no  result.  Henri  Sainte  Claire 
Deville  once  said  to  Pasteur,  "  Studies  of  that  sort  require 
much  courage."  "What  about  duty?"  said  Pasteur  simply, 
in  a  tone,  said  Deville  afterwards,  worth  many  sermons.  The 
cholera  did  not  last  long ;  by  the  end  of  the  autumn  all  danger 
had  disappeared. 

Napeoleon  the  Third  loved  science,  and  found  in  it  a  sense 
of  assured  stability  which  politics  did  not  offer  him.     He  de- 


1865—1870  127 

sired  Pasteur  to  come  and  spend  a  week  at  the  Palace  of 
Compiegne. 

The  very  first  evening  a  grand  reception  took  place.  The 
diplomatic  world  was  represented  by  M.  de  Budberg,  ambas- 
sador of  Eussia,  and  the  Prussian  ambassador,  M.  de  Goltz. 
Among  the  guests  were  :  Dr.  Longet,  celebrated  for  his 
researches  and  for  his  Treatise  on  Physiology,  a  most  original 
physician,  whose  one  desire  was  to  avoid  patients  and  so  have 
more  time  for  pure  science;  Jules  Sandeau,  the  tender  and 
delicate  novelist,  with  his  somewhat  heavy  aspect  of  a  captain 
in  the  Garde  Nationale ;  Paul  Baudry,  the  painter,  then  in  the 
flower  of  his  youth  and  radiant  success ;  Paul  Dubois,  the 
conscientious  artist  of  the  Chanteur  Florentin  exhibited  that 
very  year;  the  architect,  Viollet  le  Due,  an  habitue  of  the 
palace.  The  Emperor  drew  Pasteur  aside  towards  the  fire- 
place, and  the  scientist  soon  found  himself  instructing  his 
Sovereign,  talking  about  ferments  and  molecular  dissym- 
metry. 

Pasteur  was  congratulated  by  the  courtiers  on  the  favour  shown 
by  this  immediate  confidential  talk,  and  the  Empress  sent  him 
word  that  she  wished  him  to  talk  with  her  also.  Pasteur 
remembered  this  conversation,  an  animated  one,  a  little  discon- 
nected, chiefly  about  animalculse,  infusories  and  ferments. 
When  the  guests  returned  to  the  immense  corridor  into  which 
the  rooms  opened,  each  with  the  name  of  the  guests  on  the 
door,  Pasteur  wrote  to  Paris  for  his  microscope  and  for  some 
samples  of  diseased  wines. 

The  next  morning  a  stag  hunt  was  organized  ;  riders  in  hand- 
some costumes,  open  carriages  drawn  by  six  horses  and  con- 
taining guests ,  entered  the  forest ;  a  stag  was  soon  brought  to 
bay  by  the  hounds.  In  the  evening,  after  dinner,  there  was 
a  torchlight  procession  in  the  great  courtyard.  Amid  a  burst 
of  trumpets,  the  footmen  in  state  livery,  standing  in  a  circle, 
held  aloft  the  flaming  torches.  In  the  centre,  a  huntsman 
held  part  of  the  carcase  of  the  stag  and  waved  it  to  and  fro 
before  the  greedy  eyes  of  the  hounds,  who,  eager  to  hurl 
themselves  upon  it,  and  now  restrained  by  a  word,  then  let 
loose,  and  again  called  back  all  trembling  at  their  dis- 
comfiture, were  at  length  permitted  to  rush  upon  and  devour 
their  prey. 

The  next  day  offered  another  item  on  the  programme,  a 
visit  to    the   castle   of   Pierrefonds,   marvellously  restored  by 


128  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Viollet  le  Due  at  the  expense  of  the  Imperial  purse.  Pasteur, 
who,  hke  the  philosopher,  might  have  said,  "  I  am  never  bored 
but  when  I  am  being  entertained,"  made  his  arrangements 
so  that  the  day  should  not  be  entirely  wasted.  He  made  an 
appointment  for  his  return  with  the  head  butler,  hoping  to 
find  a  few  diseased  wines  in  the  Imperial  cellar.  That  depart- 
ment, however,  was  so  well  administered  that  he  was  only 
able  to  find  seven  or  eight  suspicious-looking  bottles.  The  tall 
flunkeys,  who  scarcely  realized  the  scientific  interest  offered 
by  a  basketful  of  wine  bottles,  watched  Pasteur  more  or  less 
ironically  as  he  returned  to  his  room,  where  he  had  the  pleasure 
of  finding  his  microscope  and  case  of  instruments  sent  from  the 
Rue  d'Ulm.  He  remained  upstairs,  absorbed  as  he  would 
have  been  in  his  laboratory,  in  the  contemplation  of  a  drop 
of  bitter  wine  revealing  the  tiny  mycoderma  which  caused  the 
bitterness. 

In  the  meanwhile  some  of  the  other  guests  were  gathered 
in  the  smoking  room,  smilingly  awaiting  the  Empress's  five 
o'clock  tea,  whilst  others  were  busy  with  the  preparations 
for  the  performance  of  Racine's  Plaidcurs,  which  Provost, 
Regnier,  Got,  Delaunay,  Coquelin,  and  Mademoiselle 
Jouassain  were  going  to  act  that  very  evening  in  the  theatre 
of  the  palace. 

On  the  Sunday,  at  4  p.m.,  he  was  received  privately  by  their 
Majesties,  for  their  instruction  and  edification.  He  wrote 
in  a  letter  to  a  friend  :  "I  went  to  the  Emperor  with  my 
microscope,  my  wine  samples,  and  all  my  paraphernalia. 
When  I  was  announced,  the  Emperor  came  up  to  meet  me 
and  asked  me  to  come  in.  M.  Conti,  who  was  writing  at  a 
table,  rose  to  leave  the  room,  but  was  invited  to  stay.  Then 
he  fetched  the  Empress,  and  I  began  to  show  their  Majesties 
various  objects  under  the  microscope  and  to  explain  them; 
it  lasted  a  whole  hour." 

The  Empress  had  been  much  interested,  and  wished  that 
her  five  o'clock  friends— who  were  waiting  in  the  room  where 
tea  was  served— should  also  acquire  some  notions  of  these 
studies.  She  merrily  took  up  the  microscope,  laughing  at  her 
new  occupation  of  laboratory  attendant,  and  arrived  thus 
laden  in  the  drawing-room,  much  to  the  surprise  of  her  privi- 
leged guests.  Pasteur  came  in  behind  her,  and  gave  a  short 
and  simple  account  of  a  few  general  ideas  and  precise 
discoveries. 


1865—1870  129 

In  the  same  way,  the  preceding  week,  Le  Verrier^  had 
spoken  of  his  planet,  and  Dr.  Longet  had  given  a  lecture  on 
the  circulation  of  the  blood.  That  butterfly  world  of  the 
Court,  taking  a  momentary  interest  in  scientific  things,  did 
not  foresee  that  the  smallest  discovery  made  in  the  poor 
laboratory  of  the  Eue  d'Ulm  would  leave  a  more  lasting  im- 
pression than  the  fetes  of  the  Tuileries  of  Fontainebleau  and 
of  Compiegne. 

In  the  course  of  their  private  interview,  Napoleon  and 
Eugenie  manifested  some  surprise  that  Pasteur  should  not 
endeavour  to  turn  his  discoveries  and  their  applications  to  a 
source  of  legitimate  profit.  "In France,"  he  replied,  "scien- 
tists would  consider  that  they  lowered  themselves  by  doing  so." 

He  was  convinced  that  a  man  of  pure  science  would  com- 
plicate his  life,  the  order  of  his  thoughts,  and  risk  paralysing 
his  inventive  faculties,  if  he  were  to  make  money  by  his 
discoveries.  For  instance,  if  he  had  followed  up  the  industrial 
results  of  his  studies  on  vinegar,  his  time  would  have  been 
too  much  and  too  regularly  occupied,  and  he  would  not  have 
been  free  for  new  researches. 

"My  mind  is  free,"  he  said.  "I  am  as  full  of  ardour  for 
the  new  question  of  silkworm  disease  as  I  was  in  1863,  when 
I  took  up  the  wine  question." 

What  he  most  wished  was  to  be  able  to  watch  the  growth 
of  the  silkworms  from  the  very  first  day,  and  to  pursue  without 
interruption  this  serious  study  in  which  the  future  of  France 
was  interested.  That,  and  the  desire  to  have  one  day  a 
laboratory  adequate  to  the  magnitude  of  his  works  were  his 
only  ambitions.  On  his  return  to  Paris  he  obtained  leave 
to  go  back  to  Alais. 

"  My  dear  Eauhn,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  former  pupil  in 
January,  1866.  "  I  am  again  entrusted  by  the  Minister  of 
Agriculture  with  a  mission  for  the  study  of  silkworm  disease, 
which  will  last  at  least  five  months,  from  February  1  to  the 
end  of  June.     Would  you  care  to  join  me?" 

1  Le  Verrier,  a  celebrated  astronomer,  at  that  time  Director  of  the 
Paris  Observatory.  His  calculations  led  him  to  surmise  the  existence 
of  the  planet  Neptune,  which  was  discovered  accordingly.  Adam,  an 
English  astronomer,  attained  the  same  result,  by  the  same  means,  at  the 
same  time,  each  of  the  two  scientists  being  in  absolute  ignorance  of  the 
work  of  the  other.  Le  Verrier  was  the  first  to  publish  his  discovery 
[Trans.] 


130  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Eaulin  excused  himself;  he  was  then  preparing,  with  his 
accustomed  slow  conscientiousness,  his  doctor's  thesis,  a  work 
afterwards  considered  by  competent  judges  to  be  a  master- 
piece. 

"I  must  console  myself,"  wrote  Pasteur,  expressing  his 
regrets,  "  by  thinking  that  you  will  complete  your  excellent 
thesis." 

One  of  Eaulin's  fellow  students  at  the  Ecole  Normale, 
M.  Gernez,  was  now  a  professor  at  the  College  Louis  le 
Grand.  His  mind  was  eminently  congenial  to  Pasteur's. 
Duruy,  then  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  was  ever  anxious 
to  smooth  down  all  difficulties  in  the  path  of  science  :  he  gave 
a  long  leave  of  absence  to  M.  Gernez,  in  order  that  he  might 
take  Eaulin's  place.  Another  young  Normalien,  Maillot, 
prepared  to  join  the  scientific  party,  much  to  his  delight.  The 
three  men  left  Paris  at  the  beginning  of  February.  They 
began  by  spending  a  few  days  in  an  hotel  at  Alais,  trying  to 
find  a  suitable  house  where  they  would  set  up  their  temporary 
laboratory.  After  a  week  or  two  in  a  house  within  the  town, 
too  far,  to  be  convenient,  from  the  restaurant  where  they 
had  their  meals,  Maillot  discovered  a  lonely  house  at  the  foot 
of  the  Mount  of  the  Hermitage,  a  mountain  once  covered  with 
flourishing  mulberry  trees,  but  now  abandoned,  and  growing 
but  a  few  olive  trees. 

This  house,  at  Pont  Gisquet,  not  quite  a  mile  from  Alais, 
was  large  enough  to  hold  Pasteur,  his  family  and  his  pupils ;  a 
laboratory  was  soon  arranged  in  an  empty  orangery. 

"Then  began  a  period  of  intense  work,"  writes  M.  Gernez. 
' '  Pasteur  undertook  a  great  number  of  trials ,  which  he  him- 
self followed  in  their  minutest  details ;  he  only  required  our 
help  over  similar  operations  by  which  he  tested  his  own.  The 
result  was  that  above  the  fatigues  of  the  day,  easily  borne  by 
us  strong  young  men,  he  had  to  bear  the  additional  burden 
of  special  researches,  importunate  visitors,  and  an  equally 
importunate    correspondence,    chiefly    dealing    out    criticisms 

Madame  Pasteur,  who  had  been  detained  in  Paris  for  her 
children's  education,  set  out  for  Alais  with  her  two  daughters. 
Her  mother  being  then  on  a  visit  to  the  rector  of  the  Chambery 
Academy,  M.  Zevort,  she  arranged  to  spend  a  day  or  two  in 
that  town.  But  hardly  had  she  arrived  when  her  daughter 
Cecile,  then  twelve  years  old,  became  ill  with  typhoid  fever. 


1865—1870  131 

Madame  Pasteur  had  the  courage  not  to  ask  her  husband  to 
leave  his  work  and  come  to  her ;  but  her  letters  alarmed  him , 
and  the  anxious  father  gave  up  his  studies  for  a  few  days  and 
arrived  at  Chambery.  The  danger  at  that  time  seemed  averted, 
and  he  only  remained  three  days  at  Chambery.  Cecile,  ap- 
parently convalescent,  had  recovered  her  smile,  that  sweet,  in- 
definable smile  which  gave  so  much  charm  to  her  serious, 
almost  melancholy  face.  She  smiled  thus  for  the  last  time  at 
her  little  sister  Marie-Louise,  about  the  middle  of  May,  lying 
on  a  sofa  by  a  sunny  window. 

On  May  21,  her  doctor,  Dr.  Flesschutt,  wrote  to  Pasteur  : 
"  If  the  interest  I  take  in  the  child  were  not  sufficient  to 
stimulate  my  efforts,  the  mother's  courage  would  keep  up  my 
hopes  and  double  my  ardent  desire  for  a  happy  issue."  Cecile 
died  on  May  23  after  a  sudden  relapse.  Pasteur  only  arrived 
at  Chambery  in  time  to  take  to  Arbois  the  remains  of  the  little 
girl,  which  were  buried  near  those  of  his  mother,  of  his  two 
other  daughters,  Jeanne  and  Camille,  and  of  his  father,  Joseph 
Pasteur.  The  little  cemetery  indeed  represented  a  cup  of 
sorrows  for  Pasteur. 

"  Your  father  has  returned  from  his  sad  journey  to 
Arbois,"  wrote  Madame  Pasteur  from  Chambery  to  her  son 
who  was  at  school  in  Paris.  "  I  did  think  of  going  back  to 
you,  but  I  could  not  leave  your  poor  father  to  go  back  to  Alais 
alone  after  this  great  sorrow."  Accompanied  by  her  who 
was  his  greatest  comfort,  and  who  gave  him  some  of  her  own 
courage,  Pasteur  came  back  to  the  Pont  Gisquet  and  returned 
to  his  work.  M.  Duclaux  in  his  turn  joined  the  hard-working 
little  party. 

At  the  beginning  of  June,  Duruy,  with  the  solicitude  of 
a  Minister  who  found  time  to  be  also  a  friend,  wrote  affection- 
ately to  Pasteur — 

"  You  are  leaving  me  quite  in  the  dark,  yet  you  know  the 
interest  I  take  in  your  work.  Where  are  you?  and  what  are 
you  doing?     Finding  out  something  I  feel  certain.   ..." 

Pasteur  answered,  "  Monsieur  le  Ministre,  I  hasten  to  thank 
you  for  your  kind  reminder.  My  studies  have  been  associated 
with  sorrow ;  perhaps  your  charming  little  daughter,  who 
used  to  play  sometimes  at  M.  Le  Verrier's,  will  remember 
Cecile  Pasteur  among  other  little  girls  of  her  age  that  she 
used  to  meet  at  the  Observatoire.  My  dear  child  was  coming 
with  her  mother  to  spend  the  Easter  holidays  with  me  at  Alais, 

K  2 


132  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

when,  during  a  few  days'  stay  at  Chamb^ry,  she  was  seized 
with  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever,  to  which  she  succumbed 
after  two  months  of  painful  suffering.  I  was  only  able  to  be 
with  her  for  a  few  days,  being  kept  here  by  my  work,  and 
full  of  deceiving  hopes  for  a  happy  issue  from  that  terrible 
disease. 

"I  am  now  wholly  wrapped  up  in  my  studies,  which  alone 
take  my  thoughts  from  my  deep  sorrow. 

"  Thanks  to  the  facilities  which  you  have  put  in  my  way, 
I  have  been  able  to  collect  a  quantity  of  experimental  observa- 
tions, and  I  think  I  understand  on  many  points  this  disease 
which  has  been  ruining  the  South  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years. 
I  shall  be  able  on  my  return  to  propose  to  the  Commission  of 
Sericiculture  a  practical  means  of  fighting  the  evil  and  sup- 
pressing it  in  the  course  of  a  few  years. 

' '  I  am  arriving  at  this  result  that  there  is  no  silkworm 
disease.  There  is  but  an  exaggeration  of  a  state  of  things 
which  has  always  existed,  and  it  is  not  difficult,  in  my  view,  to 
return  to  the  former  situation,  even  to  improve  on  it.  The 
evil  was  sought  for  in  the  worm  and  even  in  the  seed ;  that  was 
something,  but  my  observations  prove  that  it  develops  chiefly 
in  the  chrysalis,  especially  in  the  mature  chrysalis,  at  the 
moment  of  the  moth's  formation,  on  the  eve  of  the  function 
of  reproduction.  The  microscope  then  detects  its  presence 
with  certitude,  even  when  the  seed  and  the  worm  seem  very 
healthy.  The  practical  result  is  this  :  you  have  a  nursery  full ;  it 
has  been  successful  or  it  has  not ;  you  wish  to  know  whether  to 
smother  the  cocoons  or  whether  to  keep  them  for  reproduction. 
Nothing  is  simpler.  You  hasten  the  development  of  about  100 
moths  through  an  elevation  of  temperature,  and  you  examine 
these  moths  through  the  microscope,  which  will  tell  you  what 
to  do. 

' '  The  sickly  character  is  then  so  easy  to  detect  that  a  woman 
or  a  child  can  do  it.  If  the  cultivator  should  be  a  peasant, 
without  the  material  conditions  required  for  this  study,  he  can 
do  this  :  instead  of  throwing  away  the  moths  after  they  have 
laid  their  eggs,  he  can  bottle  a  good  many  of  them  in  brandy 
and  send  them  to  a  testing  office  or  to  some  experienced  person 
who  will  determine  the  value  of  the  seed  for  the  following 
year." 

The  Japanese  Government  sent  some  cases  of  seed  supposed 
to  be  healthy  to  Napoleon  III,  who  distributed  them  in  the 


1865—1870  133 

silkworm  growing  departments.  Pasteur,  in  the  meanwhile, 
was  stating  the  results  he  had  arrived  at,  and  they  were  being 
much  criticized.  In  order  to  avoid  the  pebrine,  which  was 
indeed  the  disease  caused  by  the  corpuscles  so  clearly  visible 
through  the  microscope,  he  averred  that  no  seed  should  be 
used  that  came  from  infected  moths.  In  order  to  demonstrate 
the  infectious  character  of  the  pebrine  he  would  give  to  some 
worms  meals  of  leaves  previously  contaminated  by  means  of  a 
brush  dipped  in  water  containing  corpuscles.  The  worms 
absorbed  the  food,  and  the  disease  immediately  appeared  and 
could  be  found  in  the  chrysalides  and  moths  from  those  worms. 

"  I  hope  I  am  in  the  right  road — close  to  the  goal,  perhaps, 
but  I  have  not  yet  reached  it,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  faithful 
Chappuis ;  ' '  and  as  long  as  the  final  proof  is  not  acquired  com- 
plications and  errors  are  to  be  feared.  Next  year,  the  growth 
of  the  numerous  eggs  I  have  prepared  will  obviate  my  scruples, 
and  I  shall  be  sure  of  the  value  of  the  preventive  means  I  have 
indicated.  It  is  tiresome  to  have  to  wait  a  year  before  testing 
observations  already  made;  but  I  have  every  hope  of  success." 

While  awaiting  the  renewal  of  the  silkworm  season,  he  was 
busy  editing  his  book  on  wine,  full  of  joy  at  contributing  to 
the  national  riches  through  practical  application  of  his  observa- 
tions. It  was,  in  fact,  sufficient  to  heat  the  wines  by  the 
simple  process  already  at  that  time  known  in  Austria  as 
pasteurisation,  to  free  them  from  all  germs  of  disease  and  make 
them  suitable  for  keeping  and  for  exportation.  He  did  not 
accord  much  attention  to  the  talk  of  old  gourmets  who  affirmed 
that  wines  thus  "mummified"  could  not  mellow  with  age, 
being  convinced  on  the  contrary  that  the  most  delicate  wines 
could  only  be  improved  by  heating.  "  The  ageing  of  wines," 
he  said,  "  is  due,  not  to  fermentation,  but  to  a  slow  oxidation 
which  is  favoured  by  heat." 

He  alluded  in  his  book  to  the  interest  taken  by  Napoleon  III 
in  those  researches  which  might  be  worth  millions  to  France. 
He  also  related  how  the  Imperial  solicitude  had  been  awakened, 
and  acknowledged  gratitude  for  this  to  General  Fave,  one  of 
the  Emperor's  aides  de  camp. 

The  General,  on  reading  the  proofs,  declared  that  his  name 
must  disappear.  Pasteur  regretfully  gave  in  to  his  scruples, 
but  wrote  the  following  words  on  the  copy  presented  to  General 
Fave:  "General,  this  book  contains  a  serious  omission — that 
of  your  name  :  it  would  be  an  unpardonable  one  had  it  not  been 


134  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

made  at  your  own  request,  according  to  your  custom  of  keep- 
ing your  good  works  secret.  Without  you,  these  studies  on 
wine  would  not  exist ;  you  have  helped  and  encouraged  them. 
Leave  me  at  least  the  satisfaction  of  writing  that  name  on  the 
first  page  of  this  copy,  of  which  I  beg  you  to  accept  the 
homage,  while  renewing  the  expression  of  my  devoted  grati- 
tude." 

Another  incident  gives  us  an  instance  of  Pasteur's  kindness 
of  heart.  In  the  year  1866  Claude  Bernard  suffered  from  a 
gastric  disease  so  serious  that  his  doctors,  Eayer  and  Davaine, 
had  to  admit  their  impotence.  Bernard  was  obliged  to  leave 
his  laboratory  and  retire  to  his  little  house  at  St.  Julien  (near 
Villefranche) ,  his  birthplace.  But  the  charm  of  his  recol- 
lections of  childhood  was  embittered  by  present  sadness.  His 
mind  full  of  projects,  his  life  threatened  in  its  prime,  he  had 
the  courage,  a  difficult  thing  to  unselfish  people,  of  resolutely 
taking  care  of  himself.  But  preoccupied  solely  with  his  own 
diet,  his  own  body  now  a  subject  for  experiments,  he  became 
a  prey  to  a  deep  melancholia.  Pasteur,  knowing  to  what  extent 
moral  influences  react  on  the  physique,  had  the  idea  of  writing 
a  review  of  his  friend's  works,  and  published  it  in  the  Moniteur 
Universel  of  November  7,  1866,  under  the  following  title  : 
Claude  Bernard:  the  Importance  of  his  Works,  Teaching  and 
Method.  He  began  thus :  "  Circumstances  have  recently 
caused  me  to  re-peruse  the  principal  treatises  which  have 
founded  the  reputation  of  our  great  physiologist,  Claude 
Bernard. 

"I  have  derived  from  them  so  great  a  satisfaction,  and  my 
admiration  for  his  talent  has  been  confirmed  and  increased  to 
such  an  extent  that  I  cannot  resist  the  somewhat  rash  desire 
of  communicating  my  impressions.  ..." 

Amongst  Claude  Bernard's  discoveries,  Pasteur  chose  that 
which  seemed  to  him  most  instructive,  and  which  Claude 
Bernard  himself  appreciated  most:  "When  M.  Bernard  be- 
came in  1854  a  candidate  for  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  his 
discovery  of  the  glycogenic  functions  of  the  liver  was  neither 
the  first  nor  the  last  among  those  which  had  already  placed 
him  so  high  in  the  estimation  of  men  of  science ;  yet  it  was 
by  that  one  that  he  headed  his  list  of  the  claims  which  could 
recommend  him  to  the  suffrages  of  the  illustrious  body.  That 
preference  on  the  part  of  the  master  decides  me  in  mine." 

Claude  Bernard   had   begun   by   meditating  deeply  on   the 


1865—1870  135 

disease  known  as  diabetes  and  which  is  characterized,  as  every- 
body knows,  by  a  superabundance  of  sugar  in  the  whole  of 
the  organism,  the  urine  often  being  laden  with  it.  But  how  is 
it,  wondered  Claude  Bernard,  that  the  quantity  of  sugar  ex- 
pelled by  a  diabetic  patient  can  so  far  surpass  that  with  which 
he  is  provided  by  the  starchy  or  sugary  substances  which  form 
part  of  his  food  ?  How  is  it  that  the  presence  of  sugary  matter 
in  the  blood  and  its  expulsion  through  urine  are  never  com- 
pletely arrested,  even  when  all  sugary  or  starchy  alimentation 
is  suppressed?  Are  there  in  the  human  organism  sugar-pro- 
ducing phenomena  unknown  to  chemists  and  physiologists? 
All  the  notions  of  science  were  contrary  to  that  mode  of  think- 
ing ;  it  was  affirmed  that  the  vegetable  kingdom  only  could 
produce  sugar,  and  it  seemed  an  insane  hypothesis  to  suppose 
that  the  animal  organism  could  fabricate  any.  Claude  Bernard 
dwelt  upon  it  however,  his  principle  in  experimentation  being 
this  :  ' '  When  you  meet  with  a  fact  opposed  to  a  prevailing 
theory,  you  should  adhere  to  the  fact  and  abandon  the  theory, 
even  when  the  latter  is  supported  by  great  authorities  and 
generally  adopted." 

This  is  what  he  imagined,  summed  up  in  a  few  words  by 
Pasteur — 

"  Meat  is  an  aliment  which  cannot  develop  sugar  by  the 
digestive  process  known  to  us.  Now  M.  Bernard  having  fed 
some  carnivorous  animals  during  a  certain  time  exclusively 
with  meat,  he  assured  himself,  with  his  precise  knowledge  of 
the  most  perfect  means  of  investigation  offered  him  by 
chemistry,  that  the  blood  which  enters  the  liver  by  the  portal 
vein  and  pours  into  it  the  nutritive  substances  prepared  and 
rendered  soluble  by  digestion  is  absolutely  devoid  of  sugar ; 
whilst  the  blood  which  issues  from  the  liver  by  the  hepatic 
veins  is  always  abundantly  provided  with  it.  .  .  .  M.  Claude 
Bernard  has  also  thrown  full  light  on  the  close  connection 
which  exists  between  the  secretion  of  sugar  in  the  liver  and  the 
influence  of  the  nervous  system.  He  has  demonstrated,  with 
a  rare  sagacity,  that  by  acting  on  some  determined  portion  of 
that  system  it  was  possible  to  suppress  or  exaggerate  at  will 
the  production  of  sugar.  He  has  done  more  still ;  he  has  dis- 
covered within  the  liver  the  existence  of  an  absolutely  new 
substance  which  is  the  natural  source  whence  this  organ  draws 
the  sugar  that  it  produces." 

Pasteur,  starting  from  this  discovery  of  Claude  Bernard's, 


136  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

spoke  of  the  growing  close  connection  between  medicine  and 
physiology.  Then,  with  his  constant  anxiety  to  incite  students 
to  enthusiasm,  he  recommended  them  to  read  the  lectures  de- 
livered by  Bernard  at  the  College  de  France.  Speaking  of  the 
Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Experimental  Medicine,  Pasteur 
wrote  :  "A  long  commentary  would  be  necessary  to  present 
this  splendid  work  to  the  reader ;  it  is  a  monument  raised  to 
honour  the  method  which  has  constituted  Physical  and 
Chemical  Science  since  Galileo  and  Newton,  and  which  M. 
Bernard  is  trying  to  introduce  into  physiology  and  pathology. 
Nothing  so  complete,  so  profound,  so  luminous  has  ever  been 
written  on  the  true  principles  of  the  difficult  art  of  experimenta- 
tion. .  .  .  This  book  will  exert  an  immense  influence  on  medical 
science,  its  teaching,  its  progress,  its  language  even."  Pasteur 
took  pleasure  in  adding  to  his  own  tribute  praise  from  other 
sources.  He  quoted,  for  instance,  J.  B.  Dumas'  answer  to 
Duruy,  who  asked  him,  "What  do  you  think  of  this  great 
physiologist  ?  "  "  He  is  not  a  great  physiologist ;  he  is  Physi- 
ology itself."  "I  have  spoken  of  the  man  of  science,"  con- 
tinued Pasteur.  "  I  might  have  spoken  of  the  man  in  every- 
day life,  the  colleague  who  has  inspired  so  many  with  a  solid 
friendship,  for  I  should  seek  in  vain  for  a  weak  point  in  M. 
Bernard;  it  is  not  to  be  found.  His  personal  distinction,  the 
noble  beauty  of  his  physiognomy,  his  gentle  kindliness  attract 
at  first  sight ;  he  has  no  pedantry,  none  of  a  scientist's  usual 
faults,  but  an  antique  simplicity,  a  perfectly  natural  and  un- 
affected manner,  while  his  conversation  is  deep  and  full  of  ideas. 
..."  Pasteur,  after  informing  the  public  that  the  graver 
symptoms  of  Bernard's  disease  had  now  disappeared,  ended 
thus  :  ' '  May  the  publicity  now  given  to  these  thoughts  and 
feelings  cheer  the  illustrious  patient  in  his  enforced  idleness, 
and  assure  him  of  the  joy  with  which  his  return  will  be  wel- 
comed by  his  friends  and  colleagues." 

The  very  day  after  this  article  reached  him  (November  19, 
1860)  Bernard  wrote  to  Pasteur  :  "  My  dear  friend, — I  re- 
ceived yesterday  the  Moniteur  containing  the  superb  article 
you  have  written  about  me.  Your  great  praise  indeed  makes 
me  proud,  though  I  feel  I  am  yet  very  far  from  the  goal  I 
would  reach.  If  I  return  to  health,  as  I  now  hope  I  may  do,  I 
think  I  shall  find  it  possible  to  pursue  my  work  in  a  more 
methodical  order  and  with  more  complete  means  of  demonstra- 
tion, better  indicating  the  general  idea  towards  which   my 


1865—1870  I3t 

various  efforts  converge.  In  the  meanwhile  it  is  a  very 
precious  encouragement  to  me  to  be  approved  and  praised  by  a 
man  such  as  you.  Your  works  have  given  you  a  great  name, 
and  have  placed  you  in  the  first  rank  among  experimentahsts 
of  our  time.  The  admiration  which  you  profess  for  me  is  in- 
deed reciprocated ;  and  we  must  have  been  born  to  understand 
each  other,  for  true  science  inspires  us  both  with  the  same 
passion  and  the  same  sentiments. 

' '  Forgive  me  for  not  having  answered  your  first  letter ;  but 
I  was  really  not  equal  to  writing  the  notice  you  wanted.  I 
have  deeply  felt  for  you  in  your  family  sorrow;  I  have  been 
through  the  same  trial,  and  I  can  well  understand  the  suffer- 
ings of  a  tender  and  delicate  soul  such  as  yours." 

Henri  Sainte  Claire  Deville,  who  was  as  warm-hearted  as 
he  was  witty,  had,  on  his  side,  the  ingenious  idea  of  editing 
an  address  of  collective  wishes  for  Claude  Bernard,  who 
answered  :  "My  dear  friend, — You  are  evidently  as  clever  in 
inventing  friendly  surprises  as  in  making  great  scientific  dis- 
coveries. It  was  indeed  a  most  charming  idea,  and  one  for 
which  I  am  very  grateful  to  you — that  of  sending  me  a  collec- 
tive letter  from  my  friends.  I  shall  carefully  preserve  that 
letter  :  first,  because  the  feelings  it  expresses  are  very  dear  to 
me ;  and  also  because  it  is  a  collection  of  illustrious  autographs 
which  should  go  down  to  posterity.  I  beg  you  will  transmit 
my  thanks  to  our  friends  and  colleagues,  E.  Eenan,  A.  Maury, 
F.  Eavaisson  and  Bellaguet.  Tell  them  how  much  I  am 
touched  by  their  kind  wishes  and  congratulations  on  my  re- 
covery. It  is,  alas,  not  yet  a  cure,  but  I  hope  I  am  on  a  fair 
way  to  it. 

"  I  have  received  the  article  Pasteur  has  written  about  me  in 
the  Moniteur ;  that  article  paralysed  the  vasomotor  nerves  of 
my  sympathetic  system,  and  caused  me  to  blush  to  the  roots  of 
my  hair.  I  was  so  amazed  that  I  don't  know  what  I  wrote  to 
Pasteur ;  but  I  did  not  dare  say  to  him  that  he  had  wrongly 
exaggerated  my  merits.  I  know  he  believes  all  that  he  writes, 
and  I  am  happy  and  proud  of  his  opinion,  because  it  is  that  of  a 
scientist  and  experimentalist  of  the  very  first  rank.  Neverthe- 
less, I  cannot  help  thinking  that  he  has  seen  me  through 
the  prism  of  his  kindly  heart,  and  that  I  do  not  deserve  such 
excessive  praise.  I  am  more  than  thankful  for  all  the  marks 
of  esteem  and  friendship  which  are  showered  upon  me.  They 
make  me  cling  closer  to  life,  and  feel  that  I  should  be  very 


138  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

foolish  not  to  take  care  of  myself  and  continue  to  live  amongst 
those  who  love  me,  and  who  deserve  my  love  for  all  the  hap- 
piness they  give  me.  I  intend  to  return  to  Paris  some  time 
this  month,  and,  in  spite  of  your  kind  advice,  I  should  like  to 
take  up  my  College  de  France  classes  again  this  winter.  I  hope 
to  be  allowed  not  to  begin  before  January.  But  we  shall  talk 
of  all  this  in  Paris.  I  remain  your  devoted  and  affectionate 
friend." 

To  end  this  academic  episode,  we  will  quote  from  Joseph 
Bertrand's  letter  of  thanks  to  Pasteur,  who  had  sent  him  the 
article:  ".  .  .  The  public  will  learn,  among  other  things, 
that  the  eminent  members  of  the  Academy  admire  and  love 
each  other  sometimes  with  no  jealousy.  This  was  rare  in  the 
last  century,  and,  if  all  followed  your  example,  we  should  have 
over  our  predecessors  one  superiority  worth  many  another." 

Thus  Pasteur  showed  himself  a  man  of  sentiment  as  well 
as  a  man  of  science ;  the  circle  of  his  affections  was  enlarg- 
ing, as  was  the  scope  of  his  researches,  but  without  any  detri- 
ment to  the  happy  family  life  of  his  own  intimate  circle.     That 
little  group  of  his  family  and  close  friends  identified  itself 
absolutely  with  his  work,  his  ideas  and  his  hopes,  each  mem- 
ber of  it  willingly  subordinating  his  or  her  private  interests  to 
the  success  of  his  investigations.  He  was  at  that  time  violently 
attacked  by  his  old  adversaries  as  well  as  his  new  contradictors. 
Pouchet   announced   everywhere   that   the   question   of   spon- 
taneous generation  was  being  taken  up  again  in  England,  in 
Germany,  in  Italy  and  in  America.     Joly,  Pouchet's  inseparable 
friend,  was  about  to  make  some  personal  studies  and  to  write 
some  general  considerations  on  the  new  silkworm  campaign. 
Pasteur,  who  had  confidently  said,  "The  year  1867  must  be 
the  last  to  bear  the  complaints  of  silkworm  cultivators  !  ' '  went 
back  to  Alais  in  January,  1867.     But,  before  leaving  Paris, 
Pasteur  wrote  out  for  himself  a  list  of  various  improvements 
and  reforms  which  he  desired  to  effect  in  the  administration  of 
the  Ecole  Normale,  showing  that  his  interest  in  the  great 
school  had  by  no  means  abated,  in  spite  of  his   necessary 
absence.     He  brought  with  him  his  wife  and  daughter,  and 
Messrs.  Gernez  and  Maillot ;  M.  Duclaux  was  to  come  later. 
The  worms  hatched  from  the  eggs  of  healthy  moths  and  those 
from  diseased  ones  were  growing  more  interesting  every  day ; 
they  were  in  every  instance  exactly  what  Pasteur  had  pro- 
phesied they  would  be.     But  besides  studying  his  own  silk- 


1865—1870  139 

worms,  he  liked  to  see  what  was  going  on  in  neighbouring 
magnaneries .  A  neighbour  in  the  Pont  Gisquet,  a  cultivator 
of  the  name  of  Cardinal,  had  raised  with  great  success  a  brood 
originating  from  the  famous  Japanese  seed.  He  was  disap- 
pointed, however,  in  the  eggs  produced  by  the  moths,  and 
Pasteur's  microscope  revealed  the  fact  that  those  moths  were 
all  corpuscled,  in  spite  of  their  healthy  origin.  Pasteur  did 
not  suspect  that  origin,  for  the  worms  had  shown  health  and 
vigour  through  all  their  stages  of  growth,  and  seemed  to  have 
issued  from  healthy  parents.  But  Cardinal  had  raised  another 
brood,  the  produce  of  unsound  seed,  immediately  above  these 
healthy  worms.  The  excreta  from  this  second  brood  could 
fall  on  to  the  frames  of  those  below  them,  and  the  healthy 
worms  had  become  contaminated.  Pasteur  demonstrated  that 
the  pebrine  contagion  might  take  place  in  one  or  two  different 
ways  :  either  from  direct  contact  between  the  worms  on  the 
same  frame,  or  by  the  soiling  of  the  food  from  the  very  in- 
fectious excreta.  The  remedy  for  the  pebrine  seemed  now 
found.  "The  corpuscle  disease,"  said  Pasteur,  "is  as  easily 
avoided  as  it  is  easily  contracted."  But  when  he  thought  he 
had  reached  his  goal  a  sudden  difficulty  rose  in  his  way.  Out 
of  sixteen  broods  of  worms  which  he  had  raised,  and  which 
presented  an  excellent  appearance,  the  sixteenth  perished 
almost  entirely  immediately  after  the  first  moulting.  "  In  a 
brood  of  a  hundred  worms,"  wrote  Pasteur,  "  I  picked  up  fifteen 
or  twenty  dead  ones  every  day,  black  and  rotting  with  extra- 
ordinary rapidity.  .  .  .  They  were  soft  and  flaccid  like  an 
empty  bladder.  I  looked  in  vain  for  corpuscles ;  there  was  not 
a  trace  of  them." 

Pasteur  was  temporarily  troubled  and  discouraged.  But  he 
consulted  the  writings  of  former  students  of  silkworm  diseases, 
and,  when  he  discovered  vibriones  in  those  dead  worms,  he 
did  not  doubt  that  he  had  under  his  eyes  a  well  characterized 
example  of  the  flachery  disease — a  disease  independent  and 
distinct  from  the  pebrine.  He  wrote  to  Duruy,  and  acquainted 
him  with  the  results  he  had  obtained  and  the  obstacles  he 
encountered.     Duruy  wrote  back  on  April  9,  1867 — 

"  Thank  you  for  your  letter  and  the  good  news  it  contains. 

"Not  very  far  from  you,  at  Avignon,  a  statue  has  been 
erected  to  the  Persian  who  imported  into  France  the  culti- 
vation of  madder ;  what  then  will  not  be  done  for  the  rescuer 
of  two  of  our  greatest  industries  !     Do  not  forget  to  inform  me 


140  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

when  you  have  mastered  the  one  or  two  lame  facts  which  still 
stand  in  the  way.  As  a  citizen,  as  head  of  the  Universite, 
and,  if  I  may  say  so,  as  your  friend,  I  wish  I  could  follow 
your  experiments  day  by  day. 

"  You  know  that  I  should  like  to  found  a  special  college  at 
Alais.  Please  watch  for  any  useful  information  on  that  subject. 
We  will  talk  about  it  on  your  return. 

"  I  am  obliged  to  M.  Gernez  for  his  assiduous  and  intelligent 
collaboration  with  you." 

This  letter  from  the  great  Minister  is  all  the  more  interest- 
ing that  it  is  dated  from  the  eve  of  the  day  when  the  law  on 
the  reorganization  of  primary  teaching  was  promulgated. 

The  introduction  into  the  curriculum  of  historical  and 
geographical  notions ;  the  inauguration  of  10,000  schools  and 
30,000  adult  classes;  the  transformation  of  certain  flagging 
classical  colleges  into  technical  training  schools ;  a  constant 
struggle  to  include  the  teaching  of  girls  in  Universite  organiza- 
tion ;  reforms  and  improvements  in  general  teaching  ;  the  build- 
ing of  laboratories,  etc.,  etc. — into  the  accomplishment  of  all 
these  projects  Duruy  carried  his  bold  and  methodical  activity. 
No  one  was  more  suited  than  he  to  the  planning  out  of  a 
complete  system  of  national  education.  He  and  Pasteur  were 
indeed  fitted  to  understand  each  other,  for  each  had  in  the  same 
degree  those  three  forms  of  patriotism  :  love  for  the  land, 
memories  for  the  past,  and  hero  worship. 

In  May,  1867,  Pasteur  received  at  Alais  the  news  that  a 
grand  prize  medal  of  the  1867  exhibition  was  conferred  upon 
him  for  his  works  on  wines.     He  hastened  to  write  to  Dumas — 

"  My  dear  master,  .  .  .  Nothing  has  surprised  me  more — 
or  so  agreeably, — than  the  news  of  this  Exhibition  prize  medal, 
which  I  was  far  from  expecting.  It  is  a  new  proof  of  your 
kindness,  for  I  feel  sure  that  I  have  to  thank  you  for  originat- 
ing such  a  favour.  I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  make  myself  worthy 
of  it  by  my  perseverance  in  putting  all  difficulties  aside  from 
the  subject  I  am  now  engaged  in,  and  in  which  the  light  is 
growing  brighter  every  day.  If  that  flachery  disease  had  not 
come  to  complicate  matters,  everything  would  be  well  by  now, 
I  cannot  tell  you  how  absolutely  sure  I  now  feel  of  my  con- 
clusions concerning  the  corpuscle  disease.  I  could  say  a  great 
deal  about  the  articles  of  Messrs.  Bechamp,  Estor  and  Bal- 
biani,  but  I  will  follow  your  advice  and  answer  nothing  ..." 

Dumas  had  been  advising  Pasteur  not  to  waste  his  time  by 


1865—1870  141 

answering  his  adversaries  and  contradictors.  Pasteur's  sys- 
tem was  making  way;  ten  microscopes  were  set  up,  here  and 
there ,  in  the  town  of  Alais ;  most  seed  merchants  were  taking 
up  the  examination  of  the  dead  moths,  and  the  Pont-Gisquet 
colony  had  samples  brought  in  daily  for  inspection.  "  I  have 
already  prevented  many  failures  for  next  year,"  he  wrote  to 
Dumas  (June,  1867),  "  but  I  always  beg  as  a  favour  that  a  little 
of  the  condemned  seed  may  be  raised,  so  as  to  confirm  the 
exactness  of  my  judgment." 

His  system  was  indeed  quite  simple ;  at  the  moment  when 
the  moths  leave  their  cocoons  and  mate  with  each  other,  the 
cultivator  separates  them  and  places  each  female  on  a  little 
square  of  linen  where  it  lays  its  eggs.  The  moth  is  afterwards 
pinned  up  in  a  corner  of  the  same  square  of  linen,  where  it 
gradually  dries  up ;  later  on,  in  autumn  or  even  in  winter,  the 
withered  moth  is  moistened  in  a  little  water,  pounded  in  a 
mortar,  and  the  paste  examined  with  a  microscope.  If  the 
least  trace  of  corpuscles  appears  the  linen  is  burnt,  together 
with  the  seed  which  would  have  perpetuated  the  disease. 

Pasteur  came  back  to  Paris  to  receive  his  medal ;  perhaps 
his  presence  was  not  absolutely  necesary,  but  he  did  not  ques- 
tion the  summons  he  received.  He  always  attached  an  absolute 
meaning  to  words  and  to  things,  not  being  one  of  those  who 
accept  titles  and  homage  with  an  inward  and  ironical  smile. 

The  pageant  of  that  distribution  of  prizes  was  well  worth 
seeing,  and  July  1,  1867,  is  now  remembered  by  many  who 
were  children  at  that  time.  Paris  afforded  a  beautiful  spec- 
tacle ;  the  central  avenue  of  the  Tuileries  garden ,  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  the  Avenue  des  Champs  Ely  sees,  were  lined 
along  their  full  length  by  regiments  of  infantry,  dragoons, 
Imperial  Guards,  etc.,  etc.,  standing  motionless  in  the  bright 
sunshine,  waiting  for  the  Emperor  to  pass.  The  Imperial 
carriage,  drawn  by  eight  horses,  escorted  by  the  Cent-Gardes 
in  their  pale  blue  uniform,  and  by  the  Lancers  of  the  House- 
hold, advanced  in  triumphant  array.  Napoleon  III  sat  next 
to  the  Empress,  the  Prince  Imperial  and  Prince  Napoleon 
facing  them.  From  the  Palais  de  1' Ely  see,  amidst  equally 
magnificent  ceremonial,  the  Sultan  Abdul-Aziz  and  his  son 
arrived ;  then  followed  a  procession  of  foreign  princes  :  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Prussia,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  Prince  Humbert 
of  Italy,  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Aosta,  the  Grand  Duchess 
Marie  of  Eussia,  all  of  whom  have  since    borne    a    part    in 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

European  politics.  They  entered  the  Palais  de  I'lndustrie  and 
sat  around  the  throne.  From  the  ground  to  the  first  floor  an 
immense  stand  was  raised,  affording  seats  for  17,000  persons. 
The  walls  were  decorated  with  eagles  bearing  olive  branches, 
symbolical  of  strength  and  peace.  The  Emperor  in  his  speech 
dwelt  upon  these  hopes  of  peace,  whilst  the  Empress  in  white 
satin,  wearing  a  diadem,  and  surrounded  by  white-robed  prin- 
cesses, brightly  smiled  at  these  happy  omens. 

On  their  names  being  called  out,  the  candidates  who  had 
won  Grand  Prizes,  and  those  about  to  be  promoted  in  the 
Legion  of  Honour,  went  up  one  by  one  to  the  throne.  Marshal 
Vaillant  handed  each  case  to  the  Emperor,  who  himself  gave 
it  to  the  recipient.  This  old  Field-Marshal,  with  his  rough 
bronzed  face,  who  had  been  a  captain  in  the  retreat  from 
Moscow  and  was  now  a  Minister  of  Napoleon  III,  seemed  a 
natural  and  glorious  link  between  the  First  and  the  Second 
Empires.  He  was  born  at  Dijon  in  humble  circumstances, 
of  which  he  was  somewhat  proud,  a  very  cultured  soldier,  in- 
terested in  scientific  things,  a  member  of  the  Institute.  The 
names  of  certain  members  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  promoted 
to  a  higher  rank,  such  as  Gerome  and  Meissonier,  that  of 
Ferdinand  de  Lesseps,  rewarded  for  the  achievement  of  the 
Suez  Canal,  excited  great  applause.  Pasteur  was  called  with- 
out provoking  an  equal  curiosity  :  his  scientific  discoveries,  in 
spite  of  their  industrial  applications,  being  as  yet  known  but  to 
a  few.  "  I  was  struck,"  writes  an  eye-witness,  "with  his 
simplicity  and  gravity ;  the  seriousness  of  his  life  was  visible  in 
his  stern,  almost  sad  eyes." 

At  the  end  of  the  ceremony,  when  the  Imperial  procession 
left  the  Palais  de  I'lndustrie,  an  immense  chorus,  accompanied 
by  an  orchestra,  sang  Domine  salvuni  fac  imperatorem. 

On  his  return  to  his  study  in  the  Kue  d'Ulm,  Pasteur  again 
took  up  the  management  of  the  scientific  studies  of  the  Ecole 
Normale.  But  an  incident  put  an  end  to  his  directorship, 
while  bringing  perturbation  into  the  whole  of  the  school. 
Sainte  Beuve  was  the  indirect  cause  of  this  small  revolution. 
The  Senate,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  had  had  to  examine 
a  protest  from  102  inhabitants  of  St.  Etienne  against  tlie  in- 
troduction into  their  popular  libraries  of  the  works  of  Voltaire, 
J.  J.  Eousseau,  Balzac,  E.  Eenan,  and  others.  The  com- 
mittee had  approved  this  petition  in  terms  which  identified  the 
report  with  the  petition  itself.     Sainte  Beuve,  too  exclusively 


1865—1870  US 

literary  in  his  tastes,  and  too  radical  in  his  opinions  to  be 
popular  in  the  Senate,  rose  violently  against  this  absolute  and 
arbitrary  judgment,  forgetting  everything  but  the  jeopardy  of. 
free  opinions  before  the  excessive  and  inquisitorial  zeal  of  the 
Senate.  His  speech  v^as  very  unfavourably  received,  and  one 
of  his  colleagues,  M.  Lacaze,  aged  sixty-eight,  challenged  him 
to  a  duel.  Sainte  Beuve,  himself  then  sixty-three  years  old, 
refused  to  enter  into  what  he  called  ' '  the  summary  jurisprud- 
ence which  consists  in  strangling  a  question  and  suppressing 
a  man  within  forty-eight  hours." 

The  students  of  the  Ecole  Normale  deputed  one  of  their 
number  to  congratulate  Sainte  Beuve  on  his  speech,  and  wrote 
the  following  letter  — 

' '  We  have  already  thanked  you  for  defending  freedom  of 
thought  when  misjudged  and  attacked ;  now  that  you  have 
again  pleaded  for  it,  we  beg  you  to  receive  our  renewed 
thanks. 

' '  We  should  be  happy  if  the  expression  of  our  grateful 
sympathy  could  console  you  for  this  injustice.  Courage  is  in- 
deed required  to  speak  in  the  Senate  in  favour  of  the  inde- 
pendence and  the  rights  of  thought ;  but  the  task  is  all  the  more 
glorious  for  being  more  difficult.  Addresses  are  now  being 
sent  from  everywhere ;  you  will  forgive  the  students  of  the 
Ecole  Normale  for  having  followed  the  general  lead  and  having 
sent  their  address  to  M.  Sainte  Beuve." 

This  letter  was  published  in  a  newspaper.  Etienne  Arago 
published  it  without  remembering  the  Universite  by-laws  which 
forbade  every  sort  of  political  manifestation  to  the  students. 
It  had  given  pleasure  to  Sainte  Beuve,  the  pleasure  that  elderly 
men  take  in  the  applause  of  youth ;  but  he  soon  became  uneasy 
at  the  results  of  this  noisy  publicity. 

Nisard,  the  Director  of  the  school,  could  not  very  well 
tolerate  this  breach  of  discipline.  In  spite  of  the  entreaties 
of  Sainte  Beuve,  the  student  who  had  signed  the  letter  was 
provisionally  sent  back  to  his  family.  His  comrades  revolted 
at  this  and  imperiously  demanded  his  immediate  restoration. 
Pasteur  attempted  to  pacify  them  by  speaking  to  them,  but 
failed  utterly ;  his  influence  was  very  great  over  his  own  pupils , 
the  students  on  the  scientific  side,  but  the  others,  the  "  lit- 
ter aires,"  were  the  most  violent  on  this  question,  and  he  was 
not  diplomatic  and  conciliating  enough  to  bring  them  round. 
They  rose  in  a  body,  marched  to  the  door,  and  the  whole 


144  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

school  was  soon  parading  the  streets.  "  Before  such  disorder," 
concluded  the  Moniteur,  relating  the  incident  (July  10),  "the 
authorities  were  obliged  to  order  an  immediate  closure.  The 
school  will  be  reconstituted  and  the  classes  will  reopen  on 
October  15." 

Both  the  literary  and  the  political  world  were  temporarily 
agitated ;  the  Minister  was  interviewed.  M.  Thiers  wrote  to 
Pasteur  on  July  10  :  "  My  dear  M.  Pasteur, — I  have  been 
talking  with  some  members  of  the  Left,  and  I  am  certain  or 
almost  certain,  that  the  Ecole  Normale  affair  will  be  smoothed 
over  in  the  interest  of  the  students.  M.  Jules  Simon  intends 
to  work  in  that  direction ;  keep  this  information  for  yourself, 
and  do  the  best  you  can  on  your  side." 

At  the  idea  that  the  Ecole  was  about  to  be  reconstituted, 
that  is,  that  the  three  great  chiefs,  Ni'sard,  Pasteur  and 
Jacquinet,  would  be  changed,  deep  regret  was  manifested  by 
Pasteur's  scientific  students.  One  of  them,  named  Didon,  ex- 
pressed it  in  these  terms  :  "  If  your  departure  from  the  school 
is  not  definitely  settled,  if  it  is  yet  possible  to  prevent  it,  all 
the  students  of  the  Ecole  will  be  only  too  happy  to  do  every- 
thing in  their  power.  ...  As  for  me,  it  is  impossible  to  express 
my  gratitude  towards  you.  No  one  has  ever  shown  me  so 
much  interest,  and  never  in  my  life  shall  I  forget  what  you 
have  done  for  me." 

Pasteur's  interest  in  young  men,  his  desire  to  excite  in  them 
scientific  curiosity  and  enthusiasm,  were  now  so  well  known 
that  Didon  and  several  others  who  had  successfully  passed  the 
entrance  examinations  both  for  the  Ecole  Poly  technique  and 
the  Ecole  Normale,  had  chosen  to  enter  the  latter  in  order  to 
be  under  him  ;  by  the  Normaliens  of  the  scientific  section ,  he 
was  not  only  understood  and  admired,  but  beloved,  almost 
worshipped. 

Sainte  Beuve,  who  continued  to  be  much  troubled  at  the 
consequences  of  his  speech,  wrote  to  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  in  favour  of  the  rusticated  student.  Duruy  thought 
so  much  of  Sainte  Beuve  that  the  student,  instead  of  being  exiled 
to  some  insignificant  country  school,  was  made  professor  of 
seconde  in  the  college  of  Sens.  But  it  was  specified  that  in  the 
future  no  letter  should  be  written,  no  public  responsibility 
taken  in  the  name  of  the  Ecole  without  the  authorization  of 
the  Director. 

Nisard  left ;  Dumas  had  just  been  made  President  of  the 


1865—1870  145 

Monetary  Commission ,  thus  leaving  vacant  a  place  as  Inspector- 
General  of  Higher  Education.  Duruy,  anxious  to  do  Pasteur 
justice,  thought  this  post  most  suitable  to  him  as  it  would  allow 
him  to  continue  his  researches.  The  decree  was  about  to  be 
signed,  when  Balard,  professor  of  chemistry  at  the  Faculty  of 
Sciences,  applied  for  the  post.  Pasteur  wrote  respectfully  to 
the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  (July  31)  :  "Your  Excel- 
lency must  know  that  twenty  years  ago,  when  I  left  the  Ecole 
Normale,  I  was  made  a  curator,  thanks  to  M.  Balard,  who  was 
then  a  professor  at  the  Ecole  Normale.  A  grateful  pupil  can- 
not enter  into  competition  with  a  revered  master,  especially 
for  a  post  where  considerations  of  age  and  experience  should 
have  great  weight." 

When  Pasteur  spoke  of  his  masters,  dead  or  living,  Biot  or 
Senarmont,  Dumas  or  Balard,  it  might  indeed  have  been 
thought  that  to  them  alone  he  owed  it  that  he  was  what  he 
was.  He  was  heard  on  this  occasion,  and  Balard  obtained  the 
appointment. 

Nisard  was  succeeded  by  M.  F.  Bouillier,  whose  place  as 
Inspector-General  of  Secondary  Education  devolved  on  M. 
Jacquinet.  The  directorship  of  scientific  studies  was  given  to 
Pasteur's  old  and  excellent  friend,  the  faithful  Bertin.  After 
teaching  in  Alsace  for  eighteen  years,  he  had  become  maitre  des 
conferences  at  the  Ecole  Normale  in  1866,  and  also  assistant 
of  Eegnault  at  the  College  de  France.  It  had  only  been  by 
dint  of  much  persuasion  that  Pasteur  had  enticed  him  to  Paris. 
"  What  is  the  good?"  said  the  unambitious  Bertin  ;  "  beer  is 
not  so  good  in  Paris  as  in  Strasburg.  .  .  .  Pasteur  does  not 
understand  life  ;  he  is  a  genius ,  that  is  all !  "  But ,  under  this 
apparent  indolence,  Bertin  was  possessed  of  the  taste  for  and 
the  art  of  teaching ;  Pasteur  knew  this ,  and ,  when  Bertin  was 
appointed,  Pasteur's  fears  for  the  scientific  future  of  his  beloved 
Ecole  were  abated.  Duruy,  much  regretting  the  break  of 
Pasteur's  connection  with  the  great  school,  offered  him  the 
post  of  maitre  des  conferences,  besides  the  chair  of  chemistry 
which  Balard 's  appointment  had  left  vacant  at  the  Sorbonne. 
But  Pasteur  declined  the  tempting  offer ;  he  knew  the  care  and 
trouble  that  his  public  lectures  cost  him,  and  felt  that  the  two 
posts  would  be  beyond  his  strength ;  if  his  time  were  taken  up 
by  that  double  task  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  him  to 
pursue  his  private  researches,  which  under  no  circumstances 
would  he  abandon. 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

He  carried  his  scruples  so  far  as  to  give  up  his  chemistry 
professorship  at  the  School  of  Fine  Arts,  where  he  had  been 
lecturing  since  1863.  He  had  endeavoured  in  his  lessons  to 
draw  the  attention  of  his  artist  pupils,  who  came  from  so  many 
distant  places,  to  the  actual  principles  of  Science.  "Let  us 
always  make  application  our  object,"  he  said,  "but  resting  on 
the  stern  and  solid  basis  of  scientific  principles.  Without 
those  principles,  application  is  nothing  more  than  a  series  of 
recipes  and  constitutes  what  is  called  routine.  Progress  with 
routine  is  possible,  but  desperately  slow." 

Another  reason  prevented  him  from  accepting  the  post 
offered  him  at  the  Ecole  Normale ;  this  was  that  the  tiny 
pavilion  which  he  had  made  his  laboratory  was  much  too  small 
and  too  inconvenient  to  accommodate  the  pupils  he  would  have 
to  teach.  The  only  suitable  laboratory  at  the  Ecole  was  that 
of  his  friend,  Henri  Sainte  Claire  Deville,  and  Pasteur  was 
reluctant  to  invade  it.  He  had  a  great  affection  for  his  bril- 
liant colleague,  who  was  indeed  a  particularly  charming  man, 
still  youthful  in  spite  of  his  forty-nine  summers,  active,  ener- 
getic, witty.  "I  have  no  wit,"  Pasteur  would  say  quite 
simply.  Deville  was  a  great  contrast  to  his  two  great  friends, 
Pasteur  and  Claude  Bernard,  with  their  grave  meditative  man- 
ner. He  enjoyed  boarding  at  the  Ecole  and  having  his  meals 
at  the  students'  table,  where  his  gaiety  brightened  and  amused 
everybody,  effacing  the  distance  between  masters  and  pupils  and 
yet  never  losing  by  this  familiar  attitude  a  particle  of  the 
respect  he  inspired. 

Sometimes,  however,  when  preoccupied  with  the  heavy  ex- 
penses of  his  laboratory,  he  would  invite  himself  to  lunch  with 
Duruy,  from  whom — as  from  the  Emperor  or  any  one  else — 
he  usually  succeeded  in  coaxing  what  he  wanted.  The  general 
state  of  things  connected  with  higher  education  was  at  that 
time  most  deplorable.  The  Sorbonne  was  as  Eichelieu  had 
left  it — the  Museum  was  sadly  inadequate.  At  the  College  de 
France,  it  was  indeed  impossible  to  call  by  the  name  of  labora- 
tory the  narrow,  damp  and  unhealthy  cellars,  which  Claude 
Bernard  called  "scientists'  graves,"  and  where  he  had  con- 
tracted the  long  illness  from  which  he  was  only  just  recovering. 
Duruy  understood  and  deplored  this  penury,  but  his  voice 
was  scarcely  heard  in  cabinet  councils,  the  other  Ministers 
being  absorbed  in  politics.  Pasteur,  whose  self-effacing  modesty 
disappeared  when  the  interests  of  science  were  in  question,  pre- 


1865—1870  147 

sented  to  Napoleon,  through  the  medium  of  his  enlightened 
aide  de  camp,  General  Fave,  the  following  letter,  a  most  in- 
teresting one,  for,  in  it,  possibilities  of  future  discoveries  are 
hinted  at,  which  later  became  accomplished  facts. 

"  Sire, — My  researches  on  fermentations  and  on  microscopic 
organisms  have  opened  to  physiological  chemistry  new  roads, 
the  benefit  of  which  is  beginning  to  be  felt  both  by  agricul- 
tural industries  and  by  medical  studies.  But  the  field  still  to 
be  explored  is  immense.  My  great  desire  would  be  to  explore 
it  with  a  new  ardour,  unrestrained  by  the  insufficiency  of 
material  means. 

' '  I  should  wish  to  have  a  spacious  laboratory ,  with  one  or 
two  outhouses  attached  to  it,  which  I  could  make  use  of  when 
making  experiments  possibly  injurious  to  health,  such  as  might 
be  the  scientific  study  of  putrid  and  infectious  diseases. 

"  How  can  researches  be  attempted  on  gangrene,  virus  or 
inoculations,  without  a  building  suitable  for  the  housing  of 
animals,  either  dead  or  alive?  Butchers'  meat  in  Europe 
reaches  an  exorbitant  price,  in  Buenos  Ayres  it  is  given  away. 
How,  in  a  small  and  incomplete  laboratory,  can  experiments 
be  made,  and  various  processes  tested,  which  would  facilitate 
its  transport  and  preservation  ?  The  so-called  '  splenic  fever ' 
costs  the  Beauce'  about  4,000,000  francs  annually ;  it  would  be 
indispensable  to  go  and  spend  some  weeks  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Chartres  during  several  consecutive  summers,  and  make 
minute  observations. 

These  researches  and  a  thousand  others  which  correspond 
in  my  mind  to  the  great  act  of  transformation  after  death  of 
organic  matter,  and  the  compulsory  return  to  the  ground  and 
atmosphere  of  all  which  has  once  been  living,  are  only  com- 
patible with  the  installation  of  a  great  laboratory.  The  time 
has  now  come  when  experimental  science  should  be  freed  from 
its  bonds  ..." 

The  Emperor  wrote  to  Duruy  the  very  next  day,  desiring 
that  Pasteur's  wish  should  be  acceded  to.  Duruy  gladly 
acquiesced  and  plans  began  to  be  drawn  out.  Pasteur,  who 
scarcely  dared  believe  in  these  bright  hopes,  was  consulted 
about  the  situation,  size,   etc.,   of  the   future   building,   and 

^  Ancient  name  of  the  high  flat  ground  surrounding  Chartres  and 
including  parts  of  the  Departments  of  Eure  et  Loir,  Loir  et  Cher,  Loiret 
and  Seine  et  Oise.  These  plains  are  very  fertile,  the  soil  being  ex- 
tremely rich,  and  produce  cereals  chiefly.     [Trans.] 

h  2 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

looked  forward  to  obtaining  the  help  of  Kaulin,  his  former 
pupil,  when  he  had  room  enough  to  experiment  on  a  larger 
scale.  The  proposed  site  was  part  of  the  garden  of  the  Ecole 
Normale,  where  the  pavilion  already  existing  could  be  greatly 
added  to. 

In  the  meanwhile  Pasteur  was  interviewed  by  the  Mayor 
and  the  President  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Orleans, 
who  begged  him  to  come  to  Orleans  and  give  a  public  lecture 
on  the  results  of  his  studies  on  vinegar.  He  consented  with 
pleasure,  ever  willing  to  attempt  awakening  the  interest  of  the 
public  in  his  beloved  Science — "  Science,  which  brings  man 
nearer  to  God." 

It  was  on  the  Monday,  November  11,  at  7.30  p.m.,  that 
Pasteur  entered  the  lecture  room  at  Orleans.  A  great  many 
vinegar  manufacturers,  some  doctors,  apothecaries,  professors, 
students,  even  ladies,  had  come  to  hear  him.  An  account  in 
a  contemporary  local  paper  gives  us  a  description  of  the  young- 
est member  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences  as  he  appeared 
before  the  Orleans  public.  He  is  described  as  of  a  medium 
height,  his  face  pale,  his  eyes  very  bright  through  his  glasses, 
scrupulously  neat  in  his  dress,  with  a  tiny  Legion  of  Honour 
rosette  in  his  button  hole. 

He  began  his  lecture  with  the  following  simple  words  :  ' '  The 
Mayor  and  the  President  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  having 
heard  that  I  had  studied  the  fermentation  which  produces 
vinegar,  have  asked  me  to  lay  before  the  vinegar  makers  of 
this  town  the  results  of  my  work.  I  have  hastened  to  comply 
with  their  request,  fully  sharing  in  the  desire  which  instigated 
it,  that  of  being  useful  to  an  industry  which  is  one  of  the 
sources  of  the  fortune  of  your  city  and  of  your  department." 

He  tried  to  make  them  understand  scientifically  the  well 
known  fact  of  the  transformation  of  wine  into  vinegar.  He 
showed  that  all  the  work  came  from  a  little  plant,  a  micro- 
scopic fungus,  the  mycoderma  aceti.  After  exhibiting  an  en- 
larged picture  of  that  mycoderma,  Pasteur  explained  that  the 
least  trace  of  that  little  vinegar-making  plant,  sown  on  the  sur- 
face of  any  alcoholic  and  slightly  acid  liquid,  was  sufficient  to 
produce  a  prodigious  extension  of  it ;  in  summer  or  artificial 
heat,  said  Pasteur,  a  surface  of  liquid  of  the  same  area  as  the 
Orleans  Lecture  room  could  be  covered  in  forty-eight  hours. 
The  mycodermic  veil  is  sometimes  smooth  and  hardly  visible, 
sometimes  wrinkled  and  a  little  greasy  to  the  touch.     The  fatty 


1865—1870  149 

matter  which  accompanies  the  development  of  the  plant  keeps 
it  on  the  surface,  air  being  necessary  to  the  plant;  it  would 
otherwise  perish  and  the  acetification  would  be  arrested.  Thus 
floating,  the  mycoderma  absorbs  oxygen  from  the  air  and  fixes 
it  on  the  alcohol,  which  becomes  transformed  into  acetic  acid. 

Pasteur  explained  all  the  details  in  his  clear  powerful 
voice.  Why,  in  an  open  bottle,  does  wine  left  to  itself  become 
vinegar?  Because,  thanks  to  the  air,  and  to  the  mycoderma 
aceti  (which  need  never  be  sown,  being  ever  mixed  with  the 
invisible  dusts  in  the  air),  the  chemical  transformation  of  wine 
into  vinegar  can  take  place.  Why  does  not  a  full,  closed  bottle 
become  acetified?  Because  the  mycoderma  cannot  multiply  in 
the  absence  of  air.  Wine  and  air  heated  in  the  same  vessel 
will  not  become  sour,  the  high  temperature  having  killed  the 
germs  of  mycoderma  aceti  both  in  the  wine  itself  and  in  the 
dusts  suspended  in  the  air.  But,  if  a  vessel  containing  wine 
previously  heated  is  exposed  to  the  free  contact  of  or'dinary  air, 
the  wine  may  become  sour,  for,  though  the  germs  in  the  wine 
have  been  killed,  other  germs  may  fall  into  it  from  the  air  and 
develop. 

Finally,  if  pure  alcoholized  water  does  not  become  acetified, 
though  germs  can  drop  into  it  from  the  air,  it  is  because  it 
does  not  offer  to  those  germs  the  food  necessary  to  the  plant 
— food  which  is  present  in  wine  but  not  in  alcoholized  water. 
But  if  a  suitable  aliment  for  the  little  plant  is  added  to  the 
water,  acetification  takes  place. 

When  the  acetification  is  complete,  the  mycoderma,  if  not 
submerged,  continues  to  act,  and,  when  not  arrested  in  time, 
its  oxidating  power  becomes  dangerous ;  having  no  more 
alcohol  to  act  upon,  it  ends  by  transforming  acetic  acid  itself 
into  water  and  carbonic  acid  gas,  and  the  work  of  death  and 
destruction  is  thus  achieved. 

Speaking  of  that  last  phase  of  the  mycoderma  aceti,  he  went 
on  to  general  laws — laws  of  the  universe  by  which  all  that  has 
lived  must  disappear.  "It  is  an  absolute  necessity  that  the 
matter  of  which  living  beings  are  formed  should  return  after 
their  death  to  the  ground  and  to  the  atmosphere  in  the  shape 
of  mineral  or  gaseous  substances,  such  as  steam,  carbonic  acid 
gas,  ammoniac  gas  or  nitrogen — simple  principles  easily  dis- 
placed by  movements  of  the  atmosphere  and  in  which  life  is 
again  enabled  to  seek  the  elements  of  its  indefinite  perpetuity. 
It  is  chiefly  through  acts  of  fermentation  and  slow  combustion 


150  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

that  this  law  of  dissolution  and  return  to  a  gaseous  state  is 
accomplished." 

Coming  back  to  his  special  subject,  he  pointed  out  to  vinegar 
manufacturers  the  cause  of  certain  failures  and  the  danger  of 
certain  errors. 

It  was  imagined  for  instance  that  some  microscopic  beings, 
anguillulse,  of  which  Pasteur  projected  an  enlarged  wriggling 
image  on  the  screen ,  and  which  were  to  be  found  in  the  tubs  of 
some  Orleans  vinegar  works,  were  of  some  practical  utility. 
Pasteur  explained  their  injurious  character  :  as  they  require  air 
to  live,  and  as  the  mycoderma,  in  order  to  accomplish  its  work, 
is  equally  dependent  on  oxygen,  a  struggle  takes  place  between 
the  anguillulae  and  the  mycoderma.  If  acetification  is  success- 
ful, if  the  mycoderma  spreads  and  invades  everything,  the 
vanquished  anguillulse  are  obliged  to  take  refuge  against  the 
sides  of  the  barrel,  from  which  their  little  living  army  watches 
the  least  accidental  break  of  the  veil.  Pasteur,  armed  with  a 
magnifying  glass,  had  many  times  witnessed  the  struggle  for 
life  which  takes  place  between  the  little  fungi  and  the  tiny 
animals,  each  fighting  for  the  surface  of  the  liquid.  Some- 
times, gathering  themselves  into  masses,  the  anguillulse  suc- 
ceed in  sinking  a  fragment  of  the  mycodermic  veil  and  victori- 
ously destroying  the  action  of  the  drowned  plants. 

Pasteur  related  all  this  in  a  vivid  manner,  evidently  happy 
that  his  long  and  delicate  laboratory  researches  should  now 
pass  into  the  domain  of  industry.  He  had  been  pleased  to  find 
that  some  Orleans  wine  merchants  heated  wine  according  to 
his  advice  in  order  to  preserve  it ;  and  he  now  informed  them 
that  the  temperature  of  55°  C.  which  killed  germs  and  vegeta- 
tions in  wine  could  be  applied  with  equal  success  to  vinegar 
after  it  was  produced.  The  active  germs  of  the  mycoderma 
aceti  were  thus  arretted  at  the  right  moment,  the  anguillulas 
were  killed  and  the  vinegar  remained  pure  and  unaltered. 
"Nothing,"  concluded  Pasteur,  "is  more  agreeable  to  a  man 
who  has  made  science  his  career  than  to  increase  the  number 
of  discoveries,  but  his  cup  of  joy  is  full  when  the  result  of  his 
observations  is  put  to  immediate  practical  use." 

This  year  1867  marks  a  specially  interesting  period  in 
Pasteur's  life.  At  Alais  he  had  shown  himself  an  incomparable 
observer,  solely  preoccupied  with  the  silkworm  disease,  think- 
ing, speaking  of  nothing  else.  He  would  rise  long  before  any 
one  else  so  as  to  begin  earlier  the  study  of  the  experiments  he 


1865—1870  151 

had  started,  and  would  give  his  thought  and  attention  to  some 
detail  for  hours  at  a  time.  After  this  minute  observation  he 
would  suddenly  display  a  marvellous  ingenuity  in  varying  tests, 
.foreseeing  and  avoiding  causes  of  error,  and  at  last,  after  so 
many  efforts,  a  clear  and  decisive  experiment  would  come,  as  it 
had  done  in  the  cases  of  spontaneous  generation  and  of 
ferments. 

The  contrasts  in  his  mind  had  their  parallel  in  his  character  : 
this  usually  thoughtful,  almost  dreamy  man,  absorbed  in  one 
idea,  suddenly  revealed  himself  a  man  of  action  if  provoked  by 
some  erroneous  newspaper  report  or  some  illogical  statement, 
and  especially  when  he  heard  of  some  unscrupulous  silkworm 
seed  merchant  sowing  ruin  in  poor  magnaneries  for  the  sake  of 
a  paltry  gain.  When,  on  his  return  to  Paris,  he  found  himself 
mixed  up  with  the  small  revolution  in  the  Ecole  Normale,  he 
was  seen  to  efface  himself  modestly  before  his  masters  when 
honours  and  titles  came  in  question.  Now  he  had  interrupted 
his  researches  in  order  to  do  a  kindness  to  the  people  of  Orleans , 
who,  practical  as  they  were,  and  perhaps  a  little  disdainful  of 
laboratory  theories,  had  been  surprised  to  find  him  as  careful 
of  the  smallest  detail  as  they  themselves  were. 

He  was  then  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  forty -five  years.  His 
great  intuition,  his  imagination,  which  equalled  any  poet's, 
often  carried  him  to  a  summit  whence  an  immense  horizon  lay 
before  him;  he  would  then  suddenly  doubt  this  imagination, 
resolutely,  with  a  violent  effort,  force  his  mind  to  start  again 
along  the  path  of  experimental  method,  and,  surely  and  slowly, 
gathering  proofs  as  he  went,  he  would  once  more  reach  his 
exalted  and  general  ideas.  This  constant  struggle  within  him- 
self was  almost  dramatic ;  the  words  "  Perseverance  in  Effort," 
which  he  often  used  in  the  form  of  advice  to  others,  or  as  a 
programme  for  his  own  work,  seemed  to  bring  something  far 
away,  something  infinite  before  his  dreamy  eyes. 

At  the  end  of  the  year,  an  obstacle  almost  arrested  the  great 
experiments  he  contemplated.  He  heard  that  the  promises 
made  to  him  were  vanishing  away,  the  necessary  credit  having 
been  refused  for  the  building  of  the  new  laboratory.  And  this, 
Pasteur  sadly  reflected,  when  millions  and  millions  of  francs 
were  being  spent  on  the  Opera  house  !  Wounded  in  his  feel- 
ings, both  as  a  scientist  and  a  patriot,  he  prepared  for  the 
Moniteur,  then  the  official  paper,  an  article  destined  to  shake 
the  culpable  indifference  of  public  authorities. 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

".  .  .  The  boldest  conceptions,"  he  wrote,  "the  most 
legitimate  speculations  can  be  embodied  but  from  the  day  when 
they  are  consecrated  by  observation  and  experiment.  Labora- 
tories and  discoveries  are  correlative  terms;  if  you  suppress 
laboratories,  Physical  Science  will  become  stricken  with  barren- 
ness and  death ;  it  will  become  mere  powerless  information  in- 
stead of  a  science  of  progress  and  futurity ;  give  it  back  its 
laboratories,  and  life,  fecundity  and  power  will  reappear.  Away 
from  their  laboratories,  physicists  and  chemists  are  but  dis- 
armed soldiers  on  a  battlefield. 

' '  The  deduction  from  these  principles  is  evident  :  if  the  con- 
quests useful  to  humanity  touch  your  heart — if  you  remain 
confounded  before  the  marvels  of  electric  telegraphy,  of  anaes- 
thesia, of  the  daguerreotype  and  many  other  admirable  dis- 
coveries— if  you  are  jealous  of  the  share  your  country  may  boast 
in  these  wonders — then,  I  implore  you,  take  some  interest  in 
those  sacred  dwellings  meaningly  described  as  laboratories . 
Ask  that  they  may  be  multiplied  and  completed.  They  are  the 
temples  of  the  future,  of  riches  and  of  comfort.  There 
humanity  grows  greater,  better,  stronger;  there  she  can  learn 
to  read  the  works  of  Nature,  works  of  progress  and  universal 
harmony,  while  humanity's  own  works  are  too  often  those  of 
barbarism,  of  fanaticism  and  of  destruction. 

"  Some  nations  have  felt  the  wholesome  breath  of  truth. 
Kich  and  large  laboratories  have  been  growing  in  Germany  for 
the  last  thirty  years,  and  many  more  are  still  being  built;  at 
Berlin  and  at  Bonn  two  palaces,  worth  four  million  francs  each, 
are  being  erected  for  chemical  studies.  St.  Petersburg  has 
spent  three  and  a  half  million  francs  on  a  Physiological  Insti- 
tute;  England,  America,  Austria,  Bavaria  have  made  most 
generous  sacrifices.     Italy  too  has  made  a  start. 

"And  France? 

"France  has  not  yet  begun.  .  .  ."  He  mentioned  the 
sepulchre-like  cellar  where  the  great  physiologist,  Claude 
Bernard,  was  obliged  to  live;  "  and  where?  "  WTote  Pasteur. 
' '  In  the  very  establishment  which  bears  the  name  of  the  mother 
country,  the  College  de  France  !  "  The  laboratory  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  was  no  better — a  damp,  dark  room,  one  metre  below  the 
level  of  the  street.  He  went  on,  demonstrating  that  the  pro- 
vincial Faculties  were  as  destitute  as  those  of  Paris.  "  Who 
will  believe  me  when  I  affirm  that  the  budget  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion provides  not  a  penny  towards  the  progress  of  physical 


1865—1870  153 

science  in  laboratories,  that  it  is  through  a  tolerated  adminis- 
trative fiction  that  some  scientists,  considered  as  professors, 
are  permitted  to  draw  from  the  public  treasury  towards  the 
expenses  of  their  own  work,  some  of  the  allowance  made  to 
them  for  teaching  purposes." 

The  manuscript  was  sent  to  the  Moniteur  at  the  beginning 
of  January,  1868.  It  had  lately  been  publishing  mild  articles 
on  Mussulman  architecture,  then  on  herring  fishing  in  Norway. 
The  official  whose  business  it  was  to  read  over  the  articles  sent 
to  the  paper  literally  jumped  in  his  chair  when  he  read  this 
fiery  denunciation;  he  declared  those  pages  must  be  modified, 
cut  down ;  the  Administration  could  not  be  attacked  in  that 
way,  especially  by  one  of  its  own  functionaries!  M,  Dalloz, 
the  editor  of  the  paper,  knew  that  Pasteur  would  never  consent 
to  any  alterations ;  he  advised  him  to  show  the  proofs  to  M. 
Conti,  Napoleon  Ill's  secretary. 

"  The  article  cannot  appear  in  the  Moniteur,  but  why  not 
publish  it  in  booklet  form?"  wrote  M.  Conti  to  Pasteur 
after  having  shown  these  revelations  to  the  Emperor, 
Napoleon,  talking  to  Duruy  the  next  day,  January  9,  showed 
great  concern  at  such  a  state  of  things.  "  Pasteur  is  right," 
said  Duruy,  "  to  expose  such  deficiencies;  it  is  the  best  way 
to  have  them  remedied.  Is  it  not  deplorable,  almost  scan- 
dalous, that  the  official  world  should  be  so  indifferent  on 
questions  of  science  ?  ' ' 

Duruy  felt  his  combative  instincts  awakening.  How  many 
times,  in  spite  of  his  good  humour  and  almost  Eoman  intre- 
pidity, he  had  asked  himself  whether  he  would  ever  succeed 
in  causing  his  ideas  on  higher  education  to  prevail  with  his  col- 
leagues, the  other  Ministers,  who,  carried  away  by  their  daily 
discussions,  hardly  seemed  to  realize  that  the  true  supremacy 
of  a  nation  does  not  reside  in  speeches,  but  in  the  silent  and 
tenacious  work  of  a  few  men  of  science  and  of  letters.  Pasteur's 
article  entitled  Science's  Budget  appeared  first  in  the  Revue 
des  cours  scientifiques ,  then  as  as  pamphlet.  Pasteur,  not  con- 
tent with  this,  continued  his  campaign  by  impetuous  speeches 
whenever  the  opportunity  offered.  On  March  10,  he  saw  himself 
nearing  his  goal,  and  wrote  to  Eaulin  :  "  There  is  now  a  marked 
movement  in  favour  of  Science ;  I  think  I  shall  succeed." 

Six  days  later,  on  March  16,  whilst  the  Court  was  celebrat- 
ing the  birthday  of  the  Prince  Imperial,  Napoleon  III,  who, 
on  reading  Pasteur's  article,  had  expressed  his  intention  of 


154  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

consulting  not  only  Pasteur,  but  also  Milne-Edwards,  Claude 
Bernard,   and  Henri    Sainte   Claire   Deville,    asked   the   four 
scientists  to  his  study  to  meet  Eouher,  Marshal  Vaillant  and 
Duruy,  perhaps  the  three  men  of  the  Empire  who  were  best 
qualified  to  hear  them.     The  Emperor  in  his  slow,  detached 
manner,  invited  each  of  his  guests  to  express  his  opinion  on 
the  course  to  follow.     All    agreed    in    regretting    that    pure 
science  should  be  given  up.     When  Eouher  said  that  it  was 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  reign  of  applied  science  should 
follow  that  of  pure  science,  "  But  if  the  sources  of  applications 
are   dried   up!"    interposed  the    Emperor   hastily.     Pasteur, 
asked  to  express  his  opinion  (he  had  brought  with  him  notes 
of  what  he  wished  to  say),  recalled  the  fact  that  the  Natural 
History  Museum  and  the  Ecole  Poly  technique,  which  had  had 
so  great  a  share  in  the  scientific  movement  of  the  early  part  of 
the  century,  were  no  longer  in  that  heroic  period.     For  the  last 
twenty  years  the  industrial  prosperity  of  France  had  induced 
the  cleverest  Polytechnicians  to  desert    higher    studies    and 
theoretical  science,  though  the  source  of  all  applications  was  to 
be  found  in  theory.     The  Ecole  Polytechnique  was  obliged  now 
to  recruit  its  teaching  staff  outside,  chiefly  among  Normaliens. 
What  was  to  be  done  to  train  future  scientists?     This  :   to 
maintain   in   Paris,   during    two   or   three   years,   five  or  six 
graduates  chosen  from  the  best  students  of  the  large  schools  as 
curators  or  preparation  masters,  doing  at  the  Ecole  Polytech- 
nique and  other  establishments  what  was  done  at  the  Ecole 
Normale.     Thanks   to    that    special    institution,    science    and 
higher  teaching  would  have  a  reserve  of  men  who  would  be- 
come an  honour  to  their  country.     Next,  and  this  was  the 
second  point,  no  less  important  than  the  first,  scientists  should 
be  given  resources  better  appropriated  to  the  pursuit  of  their 
work;  as  in  Germany,  for  instance,  where  a  scientist  would 
leave  one  university  for  another  on  the  express  condition  that 
a  laboratory  should  be  built  for  him,  "a  laboratory,"    said 
Pasteur,  "  usually  magnificent,  not  in  its  architecture  (though 
sometimes  that  is  the  case,  a  proof  of  the  national  pride  in 
scientific   glory),   but   in   the    number   and   perfection   of   its 
appliances.     Besides,"  he  added,  "  foreign  scientists  have  their 
private   homes   adjoining  their  laboratories   and   collections," 
indeed  a  most  pressing  inducement  to  work. 

Pasteur  did  not  suggest  that  a  scientist  should  give  up  teach- 
ing ;  he  recognized ,  on  the  contrary ,  that  public  teaching  forces 


1865—1870  155 

him  to  embrace  in  succession  every  branch  of  the  science  he 
teaches.  "  But  let  him  not  give  too  frequent  or  too  varied 
lectures!  they  paralyze  the  faculties,"  he  said,  being  well 
aware  of  the  cost  of  preparing  classes.  He  wished  that  towns 
should  be  interested  in  the  working  and  success  of  their  scien- 
tific establishments.  The  Universities  of  Paris,  of  Lyons,  of 
Strasburg,  of  Montpellier,  of  Lille,  of  Bordeaux,  and  of 
Toulouse,  forming  as  a  whole  the  University  of  France,  should 
be  connected  to  the  neighbourhood  which  they  honour  in  the 
same  way  that  German  universities  are  connected  with  their 
surroundings. 

Pasteur  had  the  greatest  admiration  for  the  German  system  : 
popular  instruction  liberally  provided,  and,  above  it,  an  intel- 
lectually independent  higher  teaching.  Therefore,  when  the 
University  of  Bonn  resolved  in  that  year,  1868,  to  offer  him  as 
a  great  homage  the  degree  of  M.D.  on  acount  of  his  works 
on  micro-organisms,  he  was  proud  to  see  his  researches  rated 
at  their  proper  value  by  a  neighbouring  nation.  He  did  not 
then  suspect  the  other  side  of  German  nature,  the  military 
side,  then  very  differently  preoccupied.  Those  preoccupations 
were  pointed  out  to  the  French  Government  in  a  spirit  of 
prophecy,  and  with  some  patriotic  anguish,  by  two  French 
officers,  General  Ducrot,  commanding  since  1865  the  6th  Mili- 
tary Division,  whose  headquarters  were  at  Strasburg,  and 
Colonel  Baron  Stoffel,  military  attache  in  Prussia  since  1866. 
Their  warnings  were  so  little  heeded  that  some  Court  intrigues 
were  even  then  on  foot  to  transfer  General  Ducrot  from  Stras- 
burg to  Bourges,  so  that  he  might  no  longer  worry  people  with 
his  monomania  of  Prussian  ambition. 

On  March  10,  the  evening  of  the  day  when  the  Emperor 
decided  upon  making  improvements,  and  when  Duruy  felt 
assured,  thanks  to  the  promised  allowances,  that  he  could  soon 
offer  to  French  professors  ' '  the  necessary  appliances  with 
which  to  compete  with  their  rivals  beyond  the  Ehine,"  Pasteur 
started  for  Alais,  where  his  arrival  was  impatiently  awaited, 
both  by  partisans  and  adversaries  of  his  experiments  on  silk- 
worm disease.  He  would  much  have  liked  to  give  the  results 
of  his  work  in  his  inaugural  lecture  at  the  Sorbonne.  "  But," 
he  wrote  to  Duruy ,  ' '  these  are  but  selfishly  sentimental 
reasons,  which  must  be  outweighed  by  the  interest  of  my 
researches." 

On  his  arrival  he  found  to  his  joy  that  those  who  had  prac- 


156  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tised  seeding  according  to  his  rigorous  prescriptions  had  met 
with  complete  success.  Other  silkworm  cultivators,  less  well 
advised,  duped  by  the  decoying  appearances  of  certain  broods, 
had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  examine  whether  the  moths  were 
corpuscled ;  they  were  witnesses  and  victims  of  the  failure 
Pasteur  had  prophesied.  He  now  looked  upon  pebrine  as  con- 
quered; but  flachery  remained,  more  difficult  to  prevent,  being 
greatly  dependent  upon  the  accidents  which  traverse  the  life  of 
a  silkworm.  Some  of  those  accidents  happen  in  spite  of  all 
precautions,  such  as  a  sudden  change  of  temperature  or  a 
stormy  day  ;  but  at  least  the  leaves  of  the  mulberry  tree  could  be 
carefully  kept  from  fermentation,  or  from  contamination  by 
dusts  in  the  nurseries.  Either  of  those  two  causes  was  suf- 
ficient to  provoke  a  fatal  disorder  in  silkworms,  the  feeding  of 
which  is  so  important  that  they  increase  to  fifteen  thousand 
times  their  own  weight  during  the  first  month  of  their  life. 
Accidental  flachery  could  therefore  be  avoided  by  hygienic  pre- 
cautions. In  order  to  prevent  it  from  becoming  hereditary, 
Pasteur — who  had  pointed  out  that  the  micro-organism  which 
causes  it  develops  at  first  in  the  intestinal  canal  of  the  worm 
and  then  becomes  localized  in  the  digestive  cavity  of  the  chry- 
salis— advised  the  following  means  of  producing  a  healthy 
strain  of  silkworms:  "This  means,"  writes  M.  Gernez, 
Pasteur's  assiduous  collaborator  in  these  studies,  "does  not 
greatly  complicate  operations,  and  infallibly  ensures  healthy 
seed.  It  consists  in  abstracting  with  the  point  of  a  scalpel  a 
small  portion  of  the  digestive  cavity  of  a  moth,  then  mixing 
it  with  a  little  water  and  examining  it  with  a  microscope.  If 
the  moths  do  not  contain  the  characteristic  micro-organism ,  the 
strain  they  come  from  may  unhesitatingly  be  considered  as 
suitable  for  seeding.  The  flachery  micro-organism  is  as  easily 
recognized  as  the  pebrine  corpuscle." 

The  seed  merchants ,  made  uneasy  by  these  discoveries  which 
so  gravely  jeopardized  their  industry,  spread  the  most  slan- 
derous reports  about  them  and  made  themselves  the  willing 
echo  of  every  imposture,  however  incredible.  M.  Laurent 
wrote  to  his  daughter,  Madame  Pasteur,  in  a  letter  dated  from 
Lyons  (June  6)  :  "  It  is  being  reported  here  that  the  failure  of 
Pasteur's  process  has  excited  the  population  of  your  neighbour- 
hood so  much  that  he  has  had  to  flee  from  Alais,  pursued  by 
infuriated  inhabitants  throwing  stones  after  him."  Some  of 
these  legends  lingered  in  the  minds  of  ignorant  people. 


1865—1870  157 

Important  news  came  from  Paris  to  Pasteur  in  July,  and  on 
the  27th  he  was  able  to  write  to  Eaulin  :  "  The  building  of  my 
laboratory  is  going  to  be  begun  !  the  orders  are  given,  and  the 
money  found.  I  heard  this  two  days  ago  from  the  Minister." 
30,000  francs  had  been  allowed  for  the  work  by  the  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction,  and  an  equal  sum  was  promised  by  the 
Minister  of  the  Emperor's  household.  Duruy  was  preparing 
at  the  same  time  a  report  on  two  projected  decrees  concerning 
laboratories  for  teaching  purposes  and  for  research.  "The 
laboratory  for  research,"  wrote  Duruy,  "  will  not  be  useful  to 
the  master  alone,  but  more  so  even  to  the  students,  thus  ensur- 
ing the  future  progress  of  science.  Students  already  pro- 
vided with  extensive  theoretical  knowledge  will  be  initiated  in 
the  teaching  laboratories  into  the  handling  of  instruments, 
elementary  manipulations,  and  what  I  may  call  classical  prac- 
tice ;  this  will  gather  them  around  eminent  masters,  from  whom 
they  will  learn  the  art  of  observation  and  methods  of  experi- 
ment. ...  It  is  with  similar  institutions  that  Germany  has 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  great  development  of  experimental 
science  which  we  are  now  watching  with  an  anxious 
sympathy." 

Pasteur  returned  to  Paris  with  his  enthusiastic  mind  over- 
flowing with  plans  of  all  kinds  of  research.  He  wanted  to  be 
there  when  the  builders  began  their  work  on  the  narrow  space 
in  the  Eue  d'Ulm.  He  wrote  to  Eaulin  on  August  10,  asking 
his  opinion  as  he  would  that  of  an  architect ;  then  went  on  to 
say,  planning  out  his  busy  holidays  :  "  I  shall  leave  Paris  on 
the  16th  with  my  wife  and  children  to  spend  three  weeks  at 
the  seaside,  at  St.  George's,  near  Bordeaux.  If  you  were  free 
at  the  end  of  the  month,  or  at  the  beginning  of  September,  I 
wish  you  could  accompany  me  to  Toulon,  where  experiments 
on  the  heating  of  wines  will  be  made  by  the  Minister  of  the 
Navy.  Great  quantities  of  heated  and  of  non-heated  wine  are 
to  be  sent  to  Gabon  so  as  to  test  the  process ;  at  present  our 
colonial  crews  have  to  drink  mere  vinegar.  A  commission  of 
very  enlightened  men  is  formed  and  has  begun  studies  with 
which  it  seems  satisfied.  .  .  .  See  if  you  can  join  me  at  Bor- 
deaux, where  I  shall  await  a  notice  from  the  chairman  of  the 
Commission,  M.  de  Lapparent,  director  of  naval  construction 
at  the  Ministry  of  Marine." 

The  Commission  mentioned  by  Pasteur  had  been  considering 
for  the  last  two  years  the  expediency  of  applying  the  heating 


158  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

process  to  wines  destined  for  the  fleet  and  to  the  colonies.  A 
first  trial  was  made  at  Brest  on  the  contents  of  a  barrel  of  500 
litres,  half  of  which  was  heated.  Then  the  two  wines  were 
sealed  in  different  barrels  and  placed  in  the  ship  Jean  Bart, 
which  remained  away  from  the  harbour  for  ten  months. 
When  the  vessel  returned,  the  Commission  noted  the  limpidity 
and  mellowness  of  the  heated  wine,  adding  in  the  official  report 
that  the  wine  had  acquired  the  attractive  colour  peculiar  to 
mature  wines.  The  non-heated  wine  was  equally  limpid,  but 
it  had  an  astringent,  almost  acid  flavour.  It  was  still  fit  to 
drink,  said  the  report,  but  it  were  better  to  consume  it  rapidly, 
as  it  would  soon  be  entirely  spoilt.  Identical  results  were 
observed  in  some  bottles  of  heated  and  non-heated  wines  at 
Eochefort  and  Orleans. 

M.  de  Lapparent  now  organized  a  decisive  experiment,  to 
take  place  under  Pasteur's  superintendence.  The  frigate  la 
Sibylle  started  for  a  tour  round  the  world  with  a  complete  cargo 
of  heated  wine.  Pasteur,  who  returned  to  Arbois  for  a  short 
rest  before  going  back  to  Paris,  wrote  from  there  to  his  early 
confidant,  Chappuis  (September  21,  1868)  :  "I  am  quite  satis- 
fied with  my  experiments  at  Toulon  and  with  the  success  of  the 
Navy  tests.  We  heated  650  hectolitres  in  two  days ;  the 
rapidity  of  this  operation  lends  itself  to  quick  and  considerable 
commissariat  arrangements.  Those  650  hectolitres  will  be 
taken  to  the  West  Coast  of  Africa,  together  with  50  hectolitres 
of  the  same  wine  non-heated.  If  the  trial  succeeds,  that  is  to 
say  if  the  650  hectolitres  arrive  and  can  be  kept  without  altera- 
tion, and  if  the  50  hectolitres  become  spoilt  (I  feel  confident 
after  the  experiments  I  have  made  that  such  will  be  the  result) , 
the  question  will  be  settled,  and,  in  the  future,  all  the  wine 
for  the  Navy  will  be  ensured  against  disease  by  a  preliminary 
heating.  The  expense  will  not  be  more  than  five  centimes 
per  hectolitre.  The  result  of  these  experiments  will  have  a 
great  influence  on  the  trade,  ever  cautious  and  afraid  of  innova- 
tions. Yet  we  have  seen,  at  Narbonne  in  particular,  some 
heating  practised  on  a  large  scale  by  several  merchants  who 
have  spoken  to  me  very  favourably  about  it.  The  exportation 
of  our  French  wines  will  increase  enormously,  for  at  present 
our  ordinary  table  wines  lend  themselves  to  trade  with  England 
and  other  countries  beyond  seas,  but  only  by  means  of  a  strong 
addition  of  alcohol,  which  raises  their  price  and  tampers  with 
their  hygienic  qualities." 


1865—1870  159 

The  experiments  were  successful.  Pasteur's  life  was  now 
over  full.  He  returned  to  Paris  at  the  beginning  of  October, 
and  threw  himself  into  his  work,  his  classes  at  the  Sorbonne, 
the  organization  of  his  laboratory,  some  further  polemics  on 
the  subject  of  silkworm  disease,  and  projected  experiments  for 
the  following  year.  This  accumulation  of  mental  work 
brought  about  extreme  cerebral  tension. 

As  soon  as  he  saw  M.  Gernez,  he  spoke  to  him  of  the  coming 
campaign  of  sericiculture ,  of  his  desire  to  reduce  his  adver- 
saries to  silence  by  heaping  proof  upon  proof.  Nothing  could 
relieve  him  from  that  absorbing  preoccupation,  not  even  the 
gaiety  of  Bertin,  who,  living  on  the  same  floor  at  the  Ecole 
Normale,  often  used  to  come  in  after  dinner  and  try  to  amuse 
him. 

On  Monday,  October  19,  Pasteur,  though  suffering  from  a 
strange  tingling  sensation  of  the  left  side,  had  a  great  desire 
to  go  and  read  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences  a  treatise  by  Salim- 
beni,  an  Italian,  who,  having  studied  and  verified  Pasteur's 
results,  declared  that  the  best  means  of  regenerating  the  cul- 
ture of  silkworms  was  due  to  the  French  scientist.  This 
treatise,  the  diploma  of  the  Bonn  University,  the  Eumford 
medal  offered  by  the  English,  all  those  testimonials  from  neigh- 
bouring nations  were  infinitely  agreeable  to  Pasteur,  who  was 
proud  to  lay  such  homage  before  the  shrine  of  France.  On 
that  day,  October  19,  1868,  a  date  which  became  a  bitter 
memory  to  his  family  and  friends — in  spite  of  an  alarming 
shivering  fit  which  had  caused  him  to  lie  down  immediately 
after  lunch  instead  of  working  as  usual — he  insisted  on  going 
to  the  Academy  sitting  at  half  past  two. 

Mme.  Pasteur,  vaguely  uneasy,  made  a  pretext  of  some  shop- 
ping beyond  the  Quai  Conti  and  accompanied  him  as  far  as  the 
vestibule  of  the  Institute.  As  she  was  turning  back,  she  met 
Balard,  who  was  coming  up  with  the  quick  step  of  a  young 
man,  stopped  him  and  asked  him  to  walk  back  with  Pasteur, 
and  not  to  leave  him  before  reaching  his  own  door,  though 
indeed  it  seemed  a  curious  exchange  of  parts  to  ask  Balard  at 
sixty  years  of  age  to  watch  over  Pasteur  still  so  young.  Pasteur 
read  Salimbeni's  paper  in  his  usual  steady  voice,  remained 
until  the  end  of  the  sitting  and  walked  back  with  Balard  and 
Sainte  Claire  Deville.  He  dined  very  lightly  and  went  to  bed 
at  nine  o'clock ;  he  had  hardly  got  into  bed  when  he  felt  him- 
self attacked  by  the  strange  symptoms  of  the  afternoon.     He 


160  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tried  to  speak,  but  in  vain ;  after  a  few  moments  he  was  able  to 
call  for  assistance.  Mme.  Pasteur  sent  at  once  for  Dr. 
Godelier,  an  intimate  friend  of  the  family,  an  army  surgeon, 
Clinical  Professor  at  the  Ecole  du  Val-de-Grace  * ;  and  Pasteur, 
paralysed  one  moment  and  free  again  the  next,  explained  his 
own  symptoms  during  the  intervals  of  the  dark  struggle  which 
endangered  his  life. 

The  cerebral  hsemorrhage  gradually  brought  about  absence 
of  movement  along  the  entire  left  side.  When  the  next  morn- 
ing Dr.  Noel  Gueneau  de  Mussy,  going  his  regulation  round  of 
the  Ecole  Normale  students,  came  into  his  room  and  said,  so  as 
not  to  alarm  him,  "I  heard  you  were  unwell,  and  thought  I 
would  come  to  see  you,"  Pasteur  smiled  the  sad  smile  of  a 
patient  with  no  illusions.  Drs.  Godelier  and  Gueneau  de 
Mussy  decided  to  call  Dr.  Andral  in  consultation,  and  went  to 
fetch  him  at  three  o'clock  at  the  Academie  de  Medecine.  Some- 
what disconcerted  by  the  singular  character  of  this  attack  of 
hemiplegia,  Andral  prescribed  the  application  of  sixteen  leeches 
behind  the  ears;  blood  flowed  abundantly,  and  Dr.  Godelier 
wrote  in  the  evening  bulletin  (Tuesday):  "Speech  clearer, 
some  movements  of  the  paralysed  limbs;  intelligence  perfect." 
Later,  at  ten  o'clock:  "Complains  of  his  paralysed  arm." 
"  It  is  like  lead ;  if  it  could  only  be  cut  off !  "  groaned  Pasteur. 
About  2  a.m.  Mme  Pasteur  thought  all  hope  was  gone.  The 
hastily  written  bulletin  reads  thus  :  "  Intense  cold,  anxious 
agitation,  features  depressed,  eyes  languid."  The  sleep  which 
followed  was  as  the  sleep  of  death. 

At  dawn  Pasteur  awoke  from  this  drowsiness.  "  Mental 
faculties  still  absolutely  intact,"  wrote  M.  Godelier  at  12.30 
on  Wednesday,  October  21.  "  The  cerebral  lesion,  whatever 
it  may  be,  is  not  worse;  there  is  an  evident  pause."  Two 
hours  later  the  words,  "  Mind  active,"  were  followed  by  the 
startling  statement,  "  Would  willingly  talk  science." 

While  these  periods  of  calm,  agitation,  renewed  hopes,  and 
despair  were  succeeding  each  other  in  the  course  of  those 
thirty-six  hours,  Pasteur's  friends  hastened  to  his  bedside.  He 
said  to  Henri  Sainte  Claire  Deville,  one  of  the  first  to  come  : 
' '  I  am  sorry  to  die ;  I  wanted  to  do  much  more  for  my 
country."     Sainte  Claire  Deville,  trying  to  hide  his  grief  under 

*  Val-de-Grdce.     A  handsome  monument  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
now  a  military  hospital.     [Trans.] 


1865—1870  161 

apparent  confidence,  answered,  "Never  fear;  you  will  recover, 
you  will  make  many  more  marvellous  discoveries,  you  will  live 
happy  days ;  I  am  your  senior,  you  will  survive  me.  Promise 
me  that  you  will  pronounce  my  funeral  oration.  ...  I  wish  you 
would;  you  would  say  nice  things  of  me,"  he  added  between 
tears  and  smiles. 

Bertin,  Gemez,  Duclaux,  Raulin,  Didon,  then  a  curator  at 
the  Ecole  Normale,  Professor  Auguste  Lamy,  the  geologist 
Marcou  (the  two  latter  being  Franche-comte  friends),  all 
claimed  the  privilege  of  helping  Mme.  Pasteur  and  M.  Godelier 
in  nursing  one  who  inspired  them  all,  not  merely  with  an 
admiring  and  devoted  affection,  but  with  a  feeling  of  tenderness 
amounting  almost  to  a  cult. 

A  private  letter  from  a  cousin,  Mme.  Cribier,  gives  an  idea 
of  those  dark  days  (October  26,  1868)  :  "The  news  is  rather 
good  this  morning ;  the  patient  was  able  to  sleep  for  a  few 
hours  last  night,  which  he  had  not  yet  done.  He  had  been  so 
restless  all  day  that  M.  Godelier  felt  uneasy  about  him  and 
ordered  complete  silence  in  the  whole  flat ;  it  was  only  in  the 
study  which  is  farthest  away  from  the  bedroom,  and  which  has 
padded  doors,  that  one  was  allowed  to  talk.  That  room  is  full 
from  morning  till  night.  All  scientific  Paris  comes  to  inquire 
anxiously  after  the  patient ;  intimate  friends  take  it  in  turns  to 
watch  by  him.  Dumas,  the  great  chemist,  was  affectionately 
insisting  on  taking  his  turn  yesterday.  Every  morning  the 
Emperor  and  Empress  send  a  footman  for  news,  which  M. 
Go  dehor  gives  him  in  a  sealed  envelope.  In  fact,  every  mark 
of  sympathy  is  given  to  poor  Marie,  and  I  hope  that  the  worst 
may  be  spared  her  in  spite  of  the  alarming  beginning.  His 
mind  seems  so  absolutely  untouched,  and  he  is  still  so  young, 
that  with  rest  and  care  he  might  yet  be  able  to  do  some  work. 
His  stroke  is  accompanied  by  symptoms  which  are  now  occu- 
pying the  attention  of  the  whole  Academy  of  Medicine. 
Paralysis  always  comes  abruptly,  whilst  for  M.  Pasteur,  it  came 
in  little  successive  fits,  twenty  or  thirty  perhaps,  and  was 
only  complete  at  the  end  of  twenty -four  hours,  which  com- 
pletely disconcerted  the  doctors  who  watched  him,  and  delayed 
their  having  recourse  to  an  active  treatment.  It  seems  that 
this  fact  is  observed  for  the  first  time,  and  is  puzzling  the 
whole  Faculty." 

M.  Pasteur's  mind  remained  clear,  luminous,  dominating 
his  prostrate  body ;  he  was  evidently  afraid  that  he  should  die 

M 


162  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

before  having  thoroughly  settled  the  question  of  silkworm 
diseases.  "  One  night  that  I  was  alone  with  him,"  relates  M. 
Gernez,  who  hardly  left  his  bedside  during  that  terrible  week, 
"  after  endeavouring  in  vain  to  distract  his  thoughts,  I  despair- 
ingly gave  up  the  attempt  and  allowed  him  to  express  the  ideas 
which  were  on  his  mind  ;  finding,  to  my  surprise,  that  they  had 
his  accustomed  clearness  and  conciseness,  I  wrote  what  he  dic- 
tated without  altering  a  word,  and  the  next  day  I  brought  to 
his  illustrious  colleague,  Dumas — who  hardly  credited  his 
senses — the  memorandum  which  appeared  in  the  report  of  the 
Academie  on  October  26,  1868,  a  week  after  the  stroke  which 
nearly  killed  him  !  It  was  a  note  on  a  very  ingenious  process 
for  discovering  in  the  earlier  tests  those  eggs  which  are  pre- 
disposed to  flachery. 

The  members  of  the  Academy  were  much  cheered  by  the 
reading  of  this  note,  which  seemed  to  bring  Pasteur  back  into 
their  midst. 

The  building  of  the  laboratory  had  been  begun,  and  hoard- 
ings erected  around  the  site.  Pasteur,  from  his  bed,  asked 
day  by  day,  "  How  are  they  getting  on?  "  But  his  wife  and 
daughter,  going  to  the  window  of  the  dining-room  which  over- 
looked the  Ecole  Normale  garden,  only  brought  him  back 
vague  answers,  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  workmen  had  dis- 
appeared from  the  very  first  day  of  Pasteur's  illness.  All  that 
could  be  seen  was  a  solitary  labourer  wheeling  a  barrow  aim- 
lesly  about,  probably  under  the  orders  of  some  official  who 
feared  to  alarm  the  patient. 

As  Pasteur  was  not  expected  to  recover,  the  trouble  and 
expense  were  deemed  unnecessary.  Pasteur  soon  became 
aware  of  this,  and  one  day  that  General  Fave  had  come  to  see 
him  he  gave  vent  to  some  bitter  feelings  as  to  this  cautious 
interruption  of  the  building  works,  saying  that  it  would  have 
been  simpler  and  more  straightforward  to  state  from  the  begin- 
ning that  the  work  was  suspended  in  the  expectation  of  a 
probable  jdemise. 

Napoleon  was  informed  of  this  excess  of  zeal,  not  only  by 
General  Fave,  but  by  Sainte  Claire  Deville,  who  was  a  guest 
at  Compiegne  at  the  beginning  of  November,  1868.  He  wrote 
to  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction — 

"  My  dear  M.  Duruy, — I  have  heard  that— unknown  to  you 
probably — the  men  who  were  working  at  M.  Pasteur's  labora- 
tory were  kept  away  from  the  very  day  he  became  ill ;  he  has 


1865—1870  163 

been  much  affected  by  this  circumstance,  which  seemed  to 
point  to  his  non-recovery.  I  beg  you  will  issue  orders  that  the 
work  begun  should  be  continued.  Believe  in  my  sincere 
friendship. — Napoleon. ' ' 

Duruy  immediately  sent  on  this  note  to  M.  du  Mesnil,  whose 
somewhat  long  title  was  that  of  ' '  Chief  of  the  Division  of 
Academic  Administration  of  Scientific  Establishments  and  of 
Higher  Education."  M.  du  Mesnil  evidently  repudiated  the 
charge  for  himself  or  for  his  Minister,  for  he  wrote  in  a  large 
hand,  on  the  very  margin  of  the  Imperial  autograph — 

"  M.  Duruy  gave  no  orders  and  had  to  give  none.  It  is  at 
his  solicitation  that  the  works  were  undertaken,  but  it  is  the 
Direction  of  Civic  Buildings  alone  which  can  have  interrupted 
them;  the  fact  should  be  verified." 

M,  de  Cardaillac,  head  of  the  Direction  of  Civic  Buildings, 
made  an  inquiry  and  the  building  was  resumed. 

It  was  only  on  November  30  that  Pasteur  left  his  bed  for 
the  first  time  and  spent  an  hour  in  his  armchair.  He  clearly 
analyzed  to  himself  his  melancholy  condition,  stricken  down 
as  he  was  by  hemiplegia  in  his  forty-sixth  year ;  but  having 
noticed  that  his  remarks  saddened  his  wife  and  daughter,  he 
spoke  no  more  about  his  illness,  and  only  expressed  his  anxiety 
not  to  be  a  trouble,  a  burden,  he  said,  to  his  wife,  his  son  and 
daughter,  and  the  devoted  friends  who  helped  to  watch  him  at 
night. 

In  the  daytime  each  offered  to  read  to  him.  General  Fave, 
whose  active  and  inquiring  mind  was  ever  on  the  alert,  brought 
him  on  one  of  his  almost  daily  visits  an  ideal  sick  man's  book, 
easy  to  read  and  offering  food  for  meditation.  It  was  the  trans- 
lation of  an  English  book  called  Self -Help,''  and  it  consisted  in 
a  series  of  biographies,  histories  of  lives  illustrating  the  power 
of  courage,  devotion  or  intelligence.  The  author,  glad  to  ex- 
pound a  discovery,  to  describe  a  masterpiece,  to  relate  noble 
enterprises,  to  dwell  upon  the  prodigies  which  energy  can 
achieve,  had  succeeded  in  making  a  homogeneous  whole  of 
these  unconnected  narratives,  a  sort  of  homage  to  Will- 
power. 

Pasteur  agreed  with  the  English  writer  in  thinking  that  the 

supremacy  of  a  nation  resides  in   ' '  the  sum  total  of  priva.te 

virtues,  activities  and  energy,"     His  thoughts  rose  higher  still ; 

men  of  science  could  wish  for  a  greater  glory  than  that  of  con- 

1  By  Dr.  Smiles.     [Trans.] 

M   2 


164  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

ti'ibuting  to  the  fame  and  fortune  of  their  country,  they  might 
aspire  to  originating  vast  benefits  to  the  whole  of  humanity. 

It  was  indeed  a  sad  and  a  subHme  spectacle,  that  of  the 
contrast  between  that  ardent,  soaring  soul  and  that  patient 
helpless  body.  It  was  probably  when  thinking  of  those 
biographies — some  of  them  too  succinct,  to  his  mind,  Jenner's 
for  instance — that  Pasteur  wrote  :  ' '  From  the  life  of  men 
whose  passage  is  marked  by  a  trace  of  durable  light,  let  us 
piously  gather  up  every  word,  every  incident  likely  to  make 
known  the  incentives  of  their  great  soul,  for  the  education  of 
posterity."  He  looked  upon  the  cult  of  great  men  as  a  great 
principle  of  national  education,  and  believed  that  children,  as 
soon  as  they  could  read,  should  be  made  acquainted  with  the 
heroic  or  benevolent  souls  of  great  men.  In  his  pious  patriotism 
he  saw  a  secret  of  strength  and  of  hope  for  a  nation  in  its 
reverence  for  the  memories  of  the  great,  a  sacred  and  intimate 
bond  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible  worlds.  His  soul 
was  deeply  religious.  During  his  illness — a  time  when  the 
things  of  this  world  assume  their  real  proportions — his  mind 
rose  far  beyond  this  earth.  The  Infinite  appeared  to  him  as  it 
did  to  Pascal ,  and  with  the  same  rapture ;  he  was  less  attracted 
by  Pascal,  when,  proud  and  disdainful,  he  exposes  man's  weak- 
ness for  humiliation's  sake,  than  when  he  declares  that  "  Man 
is  produced  but  for  Infinity,"  and  "he  finds  constant  instruc- 
tion in  progress."  Pasteur  believed  in  material  progress  as 
well  as  in  moral  improvement ;  he  invariably  marked  in  the 
books  he  was  reading — Pascal,  Nicole  and  others — those  pas- 
sages which  were  both  consoling  and  exalting. 

In  one  of  his  favourite  books.  Of  the  Knowledge  of  God  and 
of  Self,  he  much  appreciated  the  passage  where  Bossuet  ascribes 
to  human  nature  "  the  idea  of  an  infinite  wisdom,  of  an  abso- 
lute power,  of  an  infallible  rectitude,  in  one  word,  the  idea 
of  perfection."  Another  phrase  in  the  same  book  seemed  to 
him  applicable  to  experimental  method  as  well  as  to  the  conduct 
of  life  :  "  The  greatest  aberration  of  the  mind  consists  in 
believing  a  thing  because  it  is  desirable." 

With  December,  joy  began  to  return  to  the  Ecole  Normale  : 
the  laboratory  was  progressing  and  seemed  an  embodiment  of 
renewed  hopes  of  further  work.  M.  Godelier's  little  bulletins 
now  ran  :  "  General  condition  most  satisfactory.  Excellent 
morale  ;  the  progress  evidenced  daily  by  the  return  of  action  in 
the  paralysed  muscles  inspires  the  patient  with  great  confidence. 


1865—1870  165 

He  is  planning  out  his  future  sericiculture  campaign,  receives 
many  callers  without  too  much  fatigue,  converses  brightly  and 
often  dictates  letters." 

One  visit  was  a  great  pleasure  to  Pasteur — that  of  the 
Minister,  his  cordial  friend,  Duruy,  who  brought  him  good 
news  of  the  future  of  Higher  Education.  The  augmented 
credit  which  was  granted  in  the  1869  budget  would  make  it 
possible  to  rebuild  other  laboratories  besides  that  of  the  Ecole 
Normale,  and  also  to  create  in  other  places  new  centres  of 
study  and  research.  After  so  many  efforts  and  struggles,  it 
was  at  last  possible  to  foresee  the  day  when  chemistry,  physics, 
physiology,  natural  history  and  mathematics  would  each  have 
an  independent  department  in  a  great  province,  which  should 
be  called  the  Practical  School  of  Higher  Studies.  There 
would  be  no  constraint,  no  hard  and  fast  rules,  no  curriculum 
but  that  of  free  study  :  young  men  who  were  attracted  to 
pure  science,  and  others  who  preferred  practical  application, 
would  find  a  congenial  career  before  them  as  well  as  those 
who  desired  to  give  themselves  up  to  teaching.  It  can  well 
be  imagined  with  what  delight  Pasteur  heard  these  good 
tidings. 

The  bulletins  continued  to  be  favourable  :  "  (December  15)  : 
Progress  slow  but  sure  :  he  has  walked  from  his  bed  to  his 
armchair  with  some  assistance.  (December  22)  :  he  has  gone 
into  the  dining-room  for  dinner,  leaning  on  a  chair.  (29th)  : 
he  has  walked  a  few  steps  without  support." 

Pasteur  saw  in  his  convalescence  but  the  returning  means 
of  working,  and  declared  himself  ready  to  start  again  for  the 
neighbourhood  of  Alais  at  once,  intead  of  taking  the  few 
months'  rest  he  was  advised  to  have. 

He  urged  that,  after  certain  moths  and  chrysalides,  had  been 
examined  through  a  microscope,  complete  certainty  would  be 
acquired  as  to  the  condition  of  their  seed,  and  that  perfect 
seed  would  therefore  become  accessible  to  all  tradesmen  both 
great  and  small ;  would  it  not  be  absurd  and  culpable  to  let 
reasons  of  personal  health  interfere  with  saving  so  many  poor 
people  from  ruin? 

His  family  had  to  give  way,  and  on  January  18,  exactly 
three  months  after  his  paralytic  stroke,  he  was  taken  to  the 
Gare  de  Lyon  by  his  wife  and  daughter  and  M.  Gernez.  He 
then  travelled,  lying  on  the  cushions  of  a  coupe  carriage,  as  far 
as  Alais,  and  drove  from  Alais  to  St.  Hippolyte  le  Fort,  where 


166  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tests  were  being  made  on  forced  silkworms  by  the  agricultural 
society  of  Le  Vigan. 

The  house  he  came  into  was  cold  and  badly  arranged.  M. 
Gernez  improvised  a  laboratory,  with  the  assistance  of  Maillot 
and  Eaulin,  who  had  followed  their  master  down.  From  his 
sofa  or  from  his  bed,  Pasteur  directed  certain  experiments  on 
the  forced  specimens.  M.  Gernez  writes  :  "  The  operations, 
of  which  we  watched  the  phases  through  the  microscope,  fully 
justified  his  anticipations ;  and  he  rejoiced  that  he  had  not 
given  up  the  game."  In  the  world  of  the  Institute  his  de- 
parture was  blamed  by  some  and  praised  by  others ;  but 
Pasteur  merely  considered  that  one  man's  life  is  worthless  if 
not  useful  to  others. 

Dumas  wrote  to  him  early  in  February  :  "  My  dear  friend 
and  colleague, — I  have  been  thinking  of  you  so  much  !  I 
dread  fatigue  for  you,  and  wish  I  could  spare  it  you,  whilst 
hoping  that  you  may  successfully  achieve  your  great  and 
patriotic  undertaking.  I  have  hesitated  to  write  to  you  for 
fear  you  should  feel  obliged  to  answer.  However,  I  should 
like  to  have  direct  news  of  you,  as  detailed  as  possible,  and, 
besides  that,  I  should  be  much  obliged  if  you  could  send  me  a 
line  to  enlighten  me  on  the  two  following  points — 

"1.  When  are  you  going  back  to  Alais?  And  when  will 
your  Alais  broods  be  near  enough  to  their  time  to  be  most 
interesting  to  visit? 

"2.  What  should  I  say  to  people  who  beg  for  healthy  seed 
as  if  my  pockets  were  full  of  it  ?  I  tell  them  it  is  too  late ; 
but  if  you  could  tell  me  a  means  of  satisfying  them,  I  should 
be  pleased,  particularly  in  the  case  of  General  Eandon  and 
M.  Husson.  The  Marshal  (Vaillant)  is  full  of  solicitude  for 
you,  and  we  never  meet  but  our  whole  conversation  turns  upon 
you.  With  me,  it  is  natural.  With  him  less  so,  perhaps,  but 
anyhow,  he  thinks  of  you  as  much  as  is  possible,  and  this  gives 
me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure.  .  .  .  Please  present  to  Madame 
Pasteur  our  united  compliments  and  wishes.  We  wish  the 
South  could  have  the  virtues  of  Achilles'  lance — of  healing  the 
wounds  it  has  caused. — Yours  affectionately." 

Pasteur  was  reduced  to  complete  helplessness  through  hav- 
ing slipped  and  fallen  on  the  stone  floor  of  his  uncomfortable 
house,  and  was  obliged  to  dictate  the  following  letter — 

"My  dear  master, — I  thank  you  for  thinking  of  the  poor 
invalid.     I  am  very  much  in  the  same  condition  as  when  I 


1865—1870  167 

left  Paris,  my  progress  having  been  retarded  by  a  fall  on  my 
left  side.  Fortunately,  I  sustained  no  fracture,  but  only 
bruises,  which  were  naturally  painful  and  very  slow  to  dis- 
appear. 

"There  are  now  no  remaining  traces  of  that  accident,  and 
I  am  as  I  was  three  weeks  ago.  The  improvement  in  the  move- 
ments of  the  leg  and  arm  appears  to  have  begun  again,  but 
with  excessive  slowness.  I  am  about  to  have  recourse  to  elec- 
tricity, under  the  advice  and  instructions  of  Dr.  Godelier,  by 
means  of  a  small  Kuhmkorff  apparatus  which  he  has  kindly 
sent  me.     My  brain  is  still  very  weak. 

"  This  is  how  my  days  are  spent :  in  the  morning  my  three 
young  friends  come  to  see  me,  and  I  arrange  the  day's  work. 
I  get  up  at  twelve,  after  having  my  breakfast  in  bed,  and 
having  had  the  newspaper  read  to  me.  If  fine,  I  then  spend 
an  hour  or  two  in  the  little  garden  of  this  house.  Usually,  if 
I  am  feeling  pretty  well,  I  dictate  to  my  dear  wife  a  page, 
or  more  frequently  half  a  page,  of  a  little  book  I  am  preparing, 
and  in  which  I  intend  to  give  a  short  account  of  the  whole  of 
my  observations.  Before  dinner,  which  I  have  alone  with  my 
wife  and  my  little  girl  in  order  to  avoid  the  fatigue  of  conver- 
sation, my  young  collaborators  bring  me  a  report  of  their  work. 
About  seven  or  half  past,  I  always  feel  terribly  tired  and  in- 
clined to  sleep  twelve  consecutive  hours ;  but  I  invariably  wake 
at  midnight,  not  to  sleep  again  until  towards  morning,  when 
I  doze  again  for  an  hour  or  two.  What  makes  me  hope  for  an 
ultimate  cure  is  the  fact  that  my  appetite  keeps  good,  and  that 
those  short  hours  of  sleep  appear  to  be  sufficient.  You  see  that 
on  the  whole  I  am  doing  nothing  rash,  being  moreover  rigor- 
ously watched  by  my  wife  and  little  daughter.  The  latter 
pitilessly  takes  books,  pens,  papers  and  pencils  away  from  me 
with  a  perseverance  which  causes  me  joy  and  despair. 

"It  is  because  I  know  your  affection  for  your  pupils  that  I 
venture  to  give  you  so  many  details.  I  will  now  answer  the 
other  questions  in  your  letter. 

' '  I  shall  be  at  Alais  from  April  1 ;  that  will  be  the  time 
when  they  will  begin  hatching  seed  for  the  industrial  cam- 
paign, which  will  consequently  be  concluded  about  May  20  at 
the  latest.  Seeding  will  take  place  during  June,  more  or  less 
early  according  to  departments.  It  is  indeed  very  late  to- 
obtain  seed,  especially  indigenous  seed  prepared  according  to 
my  process.     I  had  foreseen  that  I  should  receive  demands  at 


168  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  last  moment,  and  that  I  should  do  well  to  put  by  a  few 
ounces;  but,  about  three  weeks  ago,  our  energetic  Minister 
wrote  to  ask  me  for  some  seed  to  distribute  to  schoolmasters, 
and  I  promised  him  what  I  had.  However  I  will  take  some 
from  his  share  and  send  you  several  lots  of  five  grammes.  The 
director  of  a  most  interesting  iVustrian  establishment  has  also 
ordered  two  ounces,  saying  he  is  convinced  of  the  excellence 
of  my  method.  His  establishment  is  a  most  interesting  ex- 
perimental magnanerie,  founded  in  a  handsome  Illyrian  pro- 
perty. Lastly,  I  have  also  promised  two  ounces  to  M.  le 
Comte  de  Casablanca.  One  of  my  young  men  is  going  out  to 
his  place  in  Corsica  to  do  the  seeding. 

"I  was  much  touched  by  what  you  tell  me  of  Marshal 
Vaillant's  kind  interest  in  my  health,  and  also  by  his  kind 
thought  in  informing  me  of  the  encouragement  given  to  my 
studies  by  the  Society  of  Agriculture.  I  wish  the  cultivators 
of  your  South  had  a  little  of  his  scientific  and  methodical 
spu'it. 

"  Madame  Pasteur  joins  with  me  in  sending  you  and  your 
family,  dear  master,  the  expression  of  my  gratitude  and  affec- 
tionate devotion." 

The  normal  season  for  the  culture  of  silkworms  was  now 
aproaching,  and  Pasteur  was  impatient  to  accumulate  the 
proofs  which  would  vouch  for  the  safety  of  his  method ;  this 
had  been  somewhat  doubted  by  the  members  of  the  Lyons 
Silks  Commission,  who  possessed  an  experimental  nursery. 
Most  of  those  gentlemen  averred  that  too  much  confidence 
should  not  be  placed  in  the  micrographs.  "Our  Commis- 
sion," thus  ran  their  report  of  the  preceding  year,  "con- 
siders the  examination  of  corpuscles  as  a  useful  indication 
which  should  be  consulted,  but  of  which  the  results  cannot 
be  presented  as  a  fact  from  which  absolute  consequences  can 
be  deducted." 

"  They  are  absolute,"  answered  Pasteur,  who  did  not  admit 
reservations  on  a  point  which  he  considered  as  invulnerable. 

On  March  22,  1869,  the  Commission  asked  Pasteur  for  a 
little  guaranteed  healthy  seed.  Pasteur  not  only  sent  them 
this,  but  also  sample  lots,  of  which  he  thus  predicted  the  future 
fate  :  — 

1.  One  lot  of  healthy  seed,  which  would  succeed; 

2.  One  lot  of  seed,  which  would  perish  exclusively  from  the 
corpuscle  disease  known  as  pebrine  or  gattine ; 


1865—1870  169 

3.  One  lot  of  seed,  which  would  perish  exclusively  from  the 
flachery  disease ; 

4.  One  lot  of  seeds,  which  would  perish  partly  from  cor- 
puscle disease  and  partly  from  flachery. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  added  Pasteur,  "that  the  comparison 
between  the  results  of  those  different  lots  will  do  more  to 
enlighten  the  Commission  on  the  certainty  of  the  principles 
I  have  established  than  could  a  mere  sample  of  healthy  seed. 

' '  I  desire  that  this  letter,  should  be  sent  to  the  Commission 
at  its  next  meeting,  and  put  down  in  the  minutes." 

The  Commission  accepted  with  pleasure  these  unexpected 
surprise  boxes. 

About  the  same  time  one  of  his  assistants,  Maillot,  started 
for  Corsica  at  M.  de  Casabianca's  request.  He  took  with  him 
six  lots  of  healthy  seed  to  Vescovato,  a  few  miles  from  Bastia. 

The  rest  of  the  colony  returned  to  the  Pont  Gisquet,  near 
Alais,  that  mulberry-planted  retreat,  where,  according  to 
Pasteur,  everything  was  conducive  to  work.  Pasteur  now 
looked  forward  to  his  definitive  victory,  and,  full  of  confidence, 
organized  his  pupils'  missions.  M.  Duclaux,  who  was  coming 
to  the  Pont  Gisquet  to  watch  the  normal  broods,  would  after- 
wards go  into  the  Cevennes  to  verify  the  seedings  made  on 
the  selection  system,  M.  Gernez  was  to  note  the  results  of 
some  seedings  made  by  Pasteur  himself  the  preceding  year  at 
M.  Eaibaud-Lange's,  at  Paillerols,  near  Digne  (Basses  Alpes). 
Eaulin  alone  would  remain  at  the  Pont  Gisquet  to  study  some 
points  of  detail  concerning  the  flachery  disease.  So  many 
results  ought  surely  to  reduce  contradictors  to  silence  ! 

"  My  dear  friend  and  colleague,"  wrote  Dumas  to  Pasteur, 
* '  I  need  not  tell  you  with  what  anxiety  we  are  watching  the 
progress  of  your  precious  health  and  of  your  silkworm  cam- 
paign. I  shall  certainly  be  at  Alais  at  the  end  of  the  week,  and 
I  shall  see,  under  your  kind  direction,  all  that  may  furnish  me 
with  the  means  of  guiding  public  opinion.  You  have  quacks 
to  fight  and  envy  to  conquer,  probably  a  hopeless  task;  the 
best  is  to  march  right  through  them.  Truth  leading  the  way. 
It  is  not  likely  that  they  will  be  converted  or  reduced  to 
silence." 

Whilst  these  expeditions  were  being  planned,  a  letter  from 
M.  Gressier,  the  Minister  of  Agriculture,  arrived  very  inoppor- 
tunely. M.  Gressier  was  better  versed  in  sub  rosd  ministerial 
combinations  than  in  seeding  processes,  and  he  asked  Pasteur 


170  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

to  examine  three  lots  of  seeds  sent  to  him  by  a  Mademoiselle 
Amat,  of  Brives-la-Gaillarde,  who  was  celebrated  in  the  de- 
partment of  the  Correze  for  her  good  management  of  silk- 
worms. This  magnanarelle,  having  had  some  successful  re- 
sults, was  begging  his  Excellency  to  accord  to  those  humble 
seeds  his  particular  consideration,  and  to  have  them  developed 
with  every  possible  care. 

At  the  same  time  she  was  sending  samples  of  the  same  seeds 
to  various  places  in  the  Gard,  the  Bouches  du  Khone,  etc.,  etc. 
M.  Gressier  (April  20)  asked  Pasteur  to  examine  them  and 
to  give  him  a  detailed  report.  Pasteur  answered  four  days 
afterwards  in  terms  which  were  certainly  not  softened  by  the 
usual  administrative  precautions — 

"  Monsieur  le  Ministre,  .  .  .  these  three  sorts  of  seed  are 
worthless.  If  they  are  developed,  even  in  very  small  nurseries, 
they  will  in  every  instance  succumb  to  corpuscle  disease.  If 
my  seeding  process  had  been  employed,  it  would  not  have  re- 
quired ten  minutes  to  discover  that  Mademoiselle  Amat's 
cocoons,  though  excellent  for  spinning  purposes,  were  abso- 
lutely unfit  for  reproduction.  My  seeding  process  gives  the 
means  of  recognizing  those  broods  which  are  suitable  for  seed, 
whilst  opposing  the  production  of  the  infected  eggs  which  year 
by  year  flood  the  silkworm  cultivating  departments. 

"  I  shall  be  much  obliged,  Monsieur  le  Ministre,  if  you  will 
kindly  inform  the  Prefect  of  the  Correze  of  the  forecasts  which 
I  now  impart  to  you,  and  if  you  will  ask  him  to  report  to  you 
the  results  of  Mademoiselle  Amat's  three  lots. 

"  For  my  part,  I  feel  so  sure  of  what  I  now  affirm,  that  I 
shall  not  even  trouble  to  test,  by  hatching  them,  the  samples 
which  you  have  sent  me.  I  have  thrown  them  into  the 
river.  ..." 

J.  B.  Dumas  had  come  to  Alais,  Messrs.  Gernez  and 
Duclaux  now  returned  from  their  expeditions.  In  two  hundred 
broods,  each  of  one  or  two  ounces  of  seed,  coming  from  three 
different  sources  and  hatched  in  various  localities,  not  one 
failure  was  recorded.  The  Lyons  Commission,  which  had 
made  a  note  of  Pasteur's  bold  prognosis,  found  it  absolutely 
correct ;  the  excellence  of  the  method  was  acknowledged  by  all 
who  had  conscientiously  tried  it.  Now  that  the  scourge  was 
really  conquered,  Pasteur  imagined  that  all  he  had  to  do  was 
to  set  up  a  table  of  the  results  sent  to  him.  But,  from  the 
south  of  France  and  from  Corsica,  jealousies  were  beginning 


1865—1870  171 

theii'  work  of  undermining ;  pseudo-scientists  in  their  vanity 
proclaimed  that  everything  was  illusory  that  was  outside  their 
own  affirmations,  and  the  seed  merchants,  willing  to  ruin 
everybody  rather  than  jeopardize  their  miserable  interests, 
"did  not  hesitate  (we  are  quoting  M.  Gernez)  to  perpetrate 
the  most  odious  falsehoods." 

Instead  of  being  annoyed,  saddened,  often  indignant  as  he 
was,  Pasteur  would  have  done  more  wisely  to  look  back  upon 
the  history  of  most  great  discoveries  and  of  the  initial  difficul- 
ties which  beset  them.  But  he  could  not  look  upon  such  things 
philosophically ;  stupidity  astonished  him  and  he  could  not 
easily  bring  himself  to  believe  in  bad  faith.  His  friends  in 
Alais  society,  M.  de  Lachadenede,  M.  Despeyroux,  professor 
of  chemistry,  might  have  reminded  him,  in  their  evening  con- 
versations, of  the  difficulties  ever  encountered  in  the  service  of 
mankind.  The  prejudice  against  potatoes,  for  instance,  had 
lasted  three  hundred  years.  When  they  were  brought  over 
from  Peru  in  the  fifteenth  centmy,  it  was  asserted  that  they 
caused  leprosy  ;  in  the  seventeenth  century ,  that  accusation  was 
recognized  to  be  absurd,  but  it  was  said  that  they  caused  fever. 
One  century  later,  in  1771,  the  Besancon  Academy  of  Medicine 
having  opened  a  competition  for  the  answer  to  the  following 
question  of  general  interest  :  ' '  What  plants  can  be  used  to 
supplement  other  foods  in  times  of  famine  ? "  a  military 
apothecary,  named  Parmentier,  competed  and  proved  victori- 
ously that  the  potato  was  quite  harmless.  After  that,  he  began 
a  propagandist  campaign  in  favour  of  potatoes.  But  prejudice 
still  subsisted  in  spite  of  his  experimental  fields  and  of  the 
dinners  in  the  menu  of  which  potatoes  held  a  large  place. 
Louis  XVI  had  then  an  inspiration  worthy  of  Henry  IV ;  he 
appeared  in  public,  wearing  in  his  buttonhole  Parmentier 's 
little  mauve  flower,  and  thus  glorified  it  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Court  and  of  the  crowd. 

But  such  comparisons  had  no  weight  with  Pasteur ;  he  was 
henceforth  sure  of  his  method  and  longed  to  see  it  adopted, 
unable  to  understand  why  there  should  be  further  discussions 
now  that  the  silkworm  industry  was  saved  and  the  bread  of 
so  many  poor  famihes  assured.  He  was  learning  to  know  all 
the  bitterness  of  sterile  polemics,  and  the  obstacles  placed  one 
by  one  in  the  way  of  those  who  attempt  to  give  humanity  any- 
thing new  and  useful.  Fortunately  he  had  what  so  many 
men  of  research  have  lacked,  the  active  and  zealous  collabora- 


172  THE5LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tion  of  pupils  imbued  with  his  principles,  and  the  rarer  and 
priceless  blessing  of  a  home  life  mingling  with  his  laboratory 
life.  His  wife  and  his  daughter,  a  mere  child,  shared  his  serici- 
culture  labours ;  they  had  become  magnanareUes  equal  to  the 
most  capable  in  Alais.  Another  privilege  was  the  advocacy  of 
some  champions  quite  unknown  to  him.  Those  who  loved 
science  and  who  understood  that  it  would  now  become,  thanks 
to  Pasteur,  an  important  factor  in  agricultural  and  sericicul- 
tural  matters  hailed  his  achievements  with  joy.  For  instance, 
a  letter  was  published  on  July  8,  1869,  in  the  Journal  of  Prac- 
tical Agriculture  by  a  cultivator  who  had  obtained  excellent 
results  by  applying  Pasteur's  method ;  the  letter  concluded  as 
follows  :  "We  should  be  obliged,  if,  through  the  columns  of 
your  paper,  you  would  express  to  M.  Pasteur  our  feelings  of 
gratitude  for  his  laborious  and  valuable  researches.  We  firmly 
hope  that  he  will  one  day  reap  the  fruit  of  his  arduous  labours, 
and  be  amply  compensated  for  the  passionate  attacks  of  w^hich 
he  is  now  the  object." 

"  Monsieur  Pasteur,"  once  said  the  Mayor  of  Alais,  Dr. 
Pages,  "if  what  you  are  showing  me  becomes  verified  in 
current  practice,  nothing  can  repay  you  for  your  work,  but  the 
town  of  Alais  will  raise  a  golden  statue  to  you." 

Marshal  Vaillant  began  to  take  more  and  more  interest  in 
this  question,  which  was  not  darkened,  in  his  eyes  at  least, 
by  the  dust  of  polemics.  The  old  soldier,  alw^ays  scrupulously 
punctual  at  the  meetings  of  the  Institute  and  of  the  Imperial 
and  Central  Society  of  Agriculture,  had  amused  himself  by 
organizing  a  little  silkworm  nursery  on  the  Pasteur  system,  in 
his  own  study,  in  the  very  centre  of  Paris.  These  experi- 
ments, in  the  Imperial  palace  might  have  reminded  an  erudite 
reader  of  Olivier  de  Serres'  Theatre  d' Agriculture  of.  the  time 
when  the  said  Olivier  de  Serres  planted  mulberry  trees  in  the 
Tuileries  gardens  at  Henry  IV's  request,  and  when,  according 
to  the  old  agricultural  writer,  a  house  was  arranged  at  the  end 
of  the  gardens  ' '  accommodated  with  all  things  necessary  as 
well  for  the  feeding  of  the  worms  as  for  the  preparation  of 
silk." 

The  Marshal,  though  calling  himself  the  most  modest  of 
sericicultors,  had  been  able  to  appreciate  the  safety  of  a  method 
which  produced  the  same  results  in  Paris  as  at  the  Pont 
Gisquet ;  the  octogenarian  veteran  dwelt  with  complacency  on 
the  splendid  condition  of  his  silkworms  in  all  their  phases  from 


1865—1870  173 

the  minute  worm  hatched  from  the  seed-hke  egg  to  the 
splendid  cocoon  of  white  or  yellow  silk. 

It  occurred  to  Vaillant  to  suggest  a  decisive  experiment  in 
favour  of  Pasteur  and  of  the  silkworm  industry.  The  Prince 
Imperial  owned  in  Illyria,  about  six  leagues  from  Trieste,  a 
property  called  Villa  Vicentina.  One  of  Napoleon's  sisters, 
Elisa  Bonaparte,  had  lived  peacefully  there  after  the  fall  of  the 
first  Empire,  and  had  left  it  to  her  daughter.  Princess  Baciocchi, 
who  bequeathed  it  to  the  Prince  Imperial,  with  the  rest  of  her 
fortune.  Vines  and  mulberry  trees  grew  plentifully  on  that 
vast  domain,  but  the  produce  of  cocoons  was  nil,  pebrine  and 
flachery  having  devastated  the  place.  Marshal  Vaillant, 
Minister  of  the  Emperor's  Household,  desired  to  render  the 
princely  property  once  again  productive  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  give  his  colleague  of  the  Institute  an  opportunity  of  ' '  de- 
finitely silencing  the  opposition  created  by  ignorance  and 
jealousy."  In  a  letter  dated  October  9,  he  requested  Pasteur 
to  send  out  900  ounces  of  seed  to  Villa  Vicentina,  a  large  quan- 
tity, for  one  ounce  produced,  on  an  average,  thirty  kilogrammes 
of  cocoons.  Six  days  later  the  Marshal  wrote  to  M.  Tisserand, 
the  director  of  the  Crown  agricultural  establishments,  who 
knew  Villa  Vicentina  :  "  I  have  suggested  to  the  Emperor  that 
M.  Pasteur  should  be  offered  a  lodging  at  Villa  Vicentina ;  the 
Emperor  acquiesces  in  the  most  gracious  manner.  Tell  me 
whether  that  is  possible." 

M.  Tisserand,  heartily  applauding  the  Marshal's  excellent 
idea,  described  the  domain  and  the  dwelling  house,  Villa  Elisa, 
a  white  Italian  two-storied  house,  situated  amongst  lawns  and 
trees  in  a  park  of  sixty  hectares.  "  It  would  indeed  be  well," 
continued  M.  Tisserand,  "that  M.  Pasteur  should  find  peace, 
rest,  and  a  return  of  the  health  he  has  so  valiantly  compromised 
in  his  devotion  to  his  country,  in  the  midst  of  the  lands  which 
will  be  the  first  to  profit  by  the  fruit  of  his  splendid  discoveries 
and  where  his  name  will  be  blessed  before  long." 

Pasteur  started  three  weeks  later  with  his  family ;  the  long 
journey  had  to  be  taken  in  short  stages,  the  state  of  his  health 
still  being  very  precarious.  He  stopped  at  Alais  on  the  way,  in 
order  to  fetch  the  selected  seed,  and  on  November  25,  at  9 
p.m.,  he  reached  Villa  Vicentina.  The  fifty  tenants  of  the 
domain  did  not  suspect  that  the  new  arrival  would  bring  back 
with  him  the  prosperity  of  former  years.  Eaulin,  the  "  tem- 
porizer," joined  his  master  a  few  weeks  later. 


174  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

This  was  a  period  not  of  rest,  but  of  a  great  calm,  with 
regular  work  under  a  pure  sky.  Whilst  waiting  for  hatching 
time,  Pasteur  continued  to  dictate  to  his  wife  the  book  he  had 
mentioned  to  J.  B.  Dumas  in  a  letter  from  St.  Hippolyte  le  Fort. 
But  the  projected  little  book  was  changing  its  shape  and  grow- 
ing into  a  two- volume  work  full  of  facts  and  documents.  It 
was  ready  to  publish  by  April,  1870. 

When  the  moment  for  hatching  the  seed  had  arrived,  Pasteur 
distributed  twenty-five  ounces  among  the  tenants  and  kept 
twenty-five  ounces  for  himself.  An  incident  disturbed  these 
days  of  w^ork  :  a  steward,  who  had  by  him  an  old  box  of 
Japanese  seed,  sold  this  suspicious  seed  with  the  rest.  The 
idea  that  confiding  peasants  had  thus  been  swindled  sent 
Pasteur  beside  himself ;  in  his  violent  anger  he  sent  for  this 
steward,  overwhelmed  him  with  reproaches  and  forbade  him 
ever  to  show  his  face  before  him  again. 

"The  Marshal,"  wrote  Dumas  to  Pasteur,  "has  told  me 
of  the  swindles  you  have  come  across  and  which  have  upset 
you  so  much.  Do  not  worry  unreasonably ;  if  I  were  you  I 
would  merely  insert  a  line  in  a  local  paper  :  '  M.  Pasteur  is 
only  answerable  for  the  seeds  he  himself  sells  to  cultivators,'  " 
Those  cultivators  soon  were  duly  edified.  The  results  of  the 
seeding  process  were  represented  by  a  harvest  of  cocoons  which 
brought  in,  after  all  expenses  were  paid,  a  profit  of  22,000 
francs,  the  first  profit  earned  by  the  property  for  ten  years. 
This  was  indeed  an  Imperial  present  from  Pasteur ;  the 
Emperor  was  amazed  and  delighted. 

The  Government  then  desired  to  do  for  Pasteur  what  had 
been  done  for  Dumas  and  Claude  Bernard,  that  is,  give  him  a 
seat  in  the  Senate.  His  most  decided  partisan  was  the  com- 
petitor that  several  political  personages  suggested  against  him  : 
Henri  Sainte  Claire  Deville.  Deville  wrote  to  Mme.  Pasteur 
in  June  :  "  You  must  know  that  if  Pasteur  becomes  a  Senator, 
and  Pasteur  alone,  you  understand — for  they  cannot  elect  two 
chemists  at  once  ! — it  will  be  a  triumph  for  your  friend — a 
triumph  and  an  unmixed  pleasure," 

The  projected  decree  was  one  of  eighteen  then  in  prepara- 
tion. The  final  list — the  last  under  the  Emipre — where  Emile 
Augier  was  to  represent  French  literature  was  postponed  from 
day  to  day. 

Pasteur  left  Villa  Vicentina  on  July  6,  taking  with  him  the 
gratitude  of  the  people  whose  good  genius  he  had  been  for 


1865—1870  175 

nearly  eight  months.  In  northern  Italy,  as  well  as  in  Austria, 
his  process  of  cellular  seeding  was  now  applied  with  success. 

Before  returning  to  France  he  went  to  Vienna  and  then  to 
Munich  :  he  desired  to  talk  with  the  German  chemist,  Liebig, 
the  most  determined  of  his  adversaries.  He  thought  it  im- 
possible that  Liebig 's  ideas  on  fermentation  should  not  have 
been  shaken  and  altered  in  the  last  thirteen  years.  Liebig 
could  not  still  be  affirming  that  the  presence  of  decomposing 
animal  or  vegetable  matter  should  be  necessary  to  fermenta- 
tion !  That  theory  had  been  destroyed  by  a  simple  and  decisive 
experiment  of  Pasteur's  :  he  had  sown  a  trace  of  yeast  in  water 
containing  but  sugar  and  mineral  crystallized  salts,  and  had 
seen  this  yeast  multiply  itself  and  produce  a  regular  alcoholic 
fermentation. 

Since  all  nitrogenized  organic  matter  (constituting  the  fer- 
ment, according  to  Liebig)  was  absent,  Pasteur  considered  that 
he  thus  proved  the  life  of  the  ferment  and  the  absence  of  any 
action  from  albuminoid  matter  in  a  stage  of  decomposition. 
The  death  phenomenon  now  appeared  as  a  life  phenomenon. 
How  could  Liebig  deny  the  independent  existence  of  ferments 
in  their  infinite  littleness  and  their  power  of  destroying  and 
transforming  everything  ?  What  did  he  think  of  all  these  new 
ideas?  would  he  still  write,  as  in  1845  :  "As  to  the  opinion 
which  explains  putrefaction  of  animal  substances  by  the 
presence  of  microscopic  animalculse,  it  may  be  compared  to  that 
of  a  child  who  would  explain  the  rapidity  of  the  Ehine  current 
by  attributing  it  to  the  violent  movement  of  the  numerous  mill 
wheels  of  Mayence  ?  ' ' 

Since  that  ingeniously  fallacious  paragraph,  many  results  had 
come  to  light.  Perhaps  Liebig,  who  in  1851  hailed  J.  B. 
Dumas  as  a  master,  had  now  come  to  Dumas'  point  of  view 
respecting  the  fruitfulness  of  the  Pastorian  theory.  That  theory 
was  extended  to  diseases ;  the  infinitely  small  appeared  as  dis- 
organizers  of  living  tissues.  The  part  played  by  the  corpuscles 
in  the  contagious  and  hereditary  pebrine  led  to  many  reflec- 
tions on  the  contagious  and  hereditary  element  of  human 
diseases.  Even  the  long-postponed  transmission  of  certain 
diseases  was  becoming  clearer  now  that,  within  the  vibrio  of 
flachery,  other  corpuscles  were  found,  germs  of  the  flachery 
disease,  ready  to  break  out  from  one  year  to  another. 

To  convince  Liebig,  to  bring  him  to  acknowledge  the 
triumph  of  those  ideas  with  the  pleasure  of  a  true  savant,  such 


176  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

was  Pasteur's  desire  when  he  entered  Liebig's  laboratory.  The 
tall  old  man,  in  a  long  frock  coat,  received  him  with  kindly 
courtesy;  but  when  Pasteur,  who  was  eager  to  come  to  the 
object  of  his  visit,  tried  to  approach  the  delicate  subject, 
Liebig,  without  losing  his  amenity,  refused  all  discussion, 
alleging  indisposition.  Pasteur  did  not  insist,  but  promised 
himself  that  he  would  return  to  the  charge. 


CHAPTEE   VII 

1870—1872 

Pasteue,  on  his  return,  spent  forty-eight  hours  in  Strasburg, 
which  was  for  him  full  of  memories  of  his  laborious  days  at  the 
Faculty  of  that  town,  between  1848  and  1854,  at  a  time  when 
rivalry  already  existed  between  France  and  Germany,  a  generous 
rivalry  of  moral  and  intellectual  effort.  He  then  heard  for  the 
first  time  of  the  threatening  war ;  all  his  hopes  of  progress 
founded  on  peace,  through  scientific  discoveries,  began  to 
crumble  away,  and  his  disappointment  was  embittered  by  the 
recollection  of  many  illusions. 

Never  was  more  cruel  rebuff  given  to  the  generous  efforts  of 
a  policy  of  sentiment  :  after  having  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
independence  and  unity  of  Italy,  France  had  sympathized 
with  Germany's  desire  for  unity,  and  few  of  the  counsellors,  or 
even  the  adversaries  of  the  Empire,  would  not  have  defended 
this  idea,  which  was  supposed  to  lead  to  civilization.  During 
that  period  of  anxious  waiting  (beginning  of  July,  1870),  when 
the  most  alarming  news  was  daily  published  in  Strasburg,  it 
did  not  occur  to  any  one  to  look  back  upon  quotations  from 
papers  only  a  few  years  old,  though  in  that  very  to'Wn  a 
pamphlet  might  have  been  found,  written  by  Edmond  About 
in  1860,  and  containing  the  following  words — 

Let  Germany  become  united  !  France  has  no  dearer  or 
more  ardent  desire,  for  she  loves  the  German  nation  with  a 
disinterested  friendship.  France  is  not  alarmed  at  seeing  the 
formation  of  an  Italian  nation  of  26,000,000  men  in  the  South ; 
she  need  not  fear  to  see  32,000,000  Germans  found  a  great 
people  on  the  Eastern  frontier." 

Proud  to  be  first  to  proclaim  the  rights  of  nations ;  influenced 
by  mingled  feelings  of  kindliness,  trustfulness,  optimism  and  a 
certain  vanity  of  disinterestedness,  France,  who  loves  to  be 
loved,   imagined    that    the    world   would   be  grateful  for  her 

N 


178  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

international  sociability,  and  that  her  smiles  were  sufficient  to 
maintain  peace  and  joy  in  Europe. 

Far  from  being  alarmed  by  certain  symptoms  in  her  neigh- 
bours, she  voluntarily  closed  her  eyes  to  the  manoeuvres  of  the 
Prussian  troops,  her  ears  to  the  roar  of  the  artillery  practice 
constantly  heard  across  her  eastern  frontier ;  in  1863  patrols  of 
German  cavalry  had  come  as  far  as  Wissemburg.  But  people 
thought  that  Germany  was  "playing  soldiers."  Duruy,  who 
shared  at  that  time  the  general  delusion,  wrote  in  some 
traveller's  notes  published  in  1864:  "We  have  had  your 
German  Ehine,  and  though  you  have  garnished  it  with 
bristling  fortresses  and  cannon  turning  France-wards,  we  do 
not  wish  to  have  it  again,  ...  for  the  time  for  conquests  is 
past.  Conquests  shall  only  now  be  made  with  the  free  consent 
of  nations.  Too  much  blood  has  been  poured  into  the  Ehine  ! 
What  an  immense  people  would  arise  if  they  who  were  struck 
down  by  the  sword  along  its  banks  could  be  restored  to  life  ! ' ' 

After  the  thunderclap  of  Sadowa,  the  French  Government, 
believing,  in  its  infatuation,  that  it  was  entitled  to  a  share  of 
gratitude  and  security,  asked  for  the  land  along  the  Rhine  as 
far  as  Mayence  ;  this  territorial  aggrandizement  might  have 
compensated  for  Prussia's  redoubtable  conquests.  The  refusal 
was  not  long  in  coming.  The  Ehenish  provinces  immediately 
swarmed  with  Prussian  troops.  The  Emperor,  awaking  from 
his  dream,  hesitating  to  make  war,  sent  another  proposition 
to  Prussia  :  that  the  Ehenish  provinces  should  become  a  buffer 
State.  The  same  haughty  answer  was  returned.  France  then 
hoped  for  the  cession  of  Luxemburg,  a  hope  all  the  more 
natural  in  that  the  populations  of  Luxemburg  were  willing  to 
vote  for  annexation  to  France,  and  such  a  policy  would  have 
been  in  accordance  with  the  rights  of  nations.  But  this  request, 
apparently  entertained  at  first  by  Prussia,  was  presently  ham- 
pered by  intrigues  which  caused  its  rejection.  Duped,  not  even 
treated  as  an  arbiter,  but  merely  as  a  contemptible  wit- 
ness, France  dazzled  herself  for  a  moment  with  the  brilliant 
Exhibition  of  1867.  But  it  was  a  last  and  splendid 
flash ;  the  word  which  is  the  bane  of  nations  and  of 
sovereigns,  "  to-morrow,"  was  on  the  lips  of  the  ageing  Em- 
peror. The  reform  in  the  French  army,  which  should  have 
been  bold  and  immediate,  was  postponed  and  afterwards  begun 
jerkily  and  unmethodically.  Prussia  however  affected  to  be 
alarmed.     Then  irritation  at  having  been  duped,  the  evidence 


1870—1872  179 

of  a  growing  peril,  a  lingering  hope  in  the  military  fortune  of 
France — everything  conspired  to  give  an  incident,  provoked 
by  Prussia,  the  proportions  of  a  casus  belli.  But,  in  spite  of 
so  many  grievances,  people  did  not  yet  believe  in  this  sudden 
return  to  barbarism.  The  Imperial  policy  had  indeed  been 
blindly  inconsistent;  after  opening  a  wide  prospect  of  unity 
before  the  G-erman  people  it  had  been  thought  possible  to  say 
"No  further  than  the  Main,"  as  if  the  impetuous  force  of  a 
popular  movement  could  be  arrested  after  once  being  started. 
France  suddenly  opened  her  eyes  to  her  danger  and  to  the 
failure  of  her  policy.  But  if  a  noble  sentiment  of  generosity 
had  been  mingled  with  the  desire  to  increase  her  territory  with- 
out shedding  a  drop  of  blood,  she  had  had  the  honour  of  being 
in  the  vanguard  of  progress.  Were  great  ideas  of  peace  and 
human  brotherhood  about  to  be  engulfed  in  a  war  which  would 
throw  Europe  into  an  era  of  violence  and  brutality? 

Pasteur,  profoundly  saddened,  could  not  bear  to  realize  that 
his  ideal  of  the  peaceful  and  beneficent  destiny  of  France  was 
about  to  vanish;  he  left  Strasburg — never  to  return  to  it — a 
prey  to  the  most  sombre  thoughts. 

When  he  returned  to  Paris,  he  met  Sainte  Claire  Deville, 
who  had  come  back  from  a  scientific  mission  in  Germany,  and 
who  had  for  the  first  time  lost  his  brightness  and  optimism. 
The  war  appeared  to  him  absolutely  disastrous.  He  had  seen 
the  Prussian  army,  redoubtable  in  its  skilful  organization, 
closing  along  the  frontier ;  the  invasion  was  certain ,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  stay  it.  Everything  was  lacking  in  France, 
even  in  arsenals  like  Strasburg.  At  Toul,  on  the  second  line  of 
fortifications,  so  little  attention  was  paid  to  defence  that  the 
Government  had  thought  that  the  place  could  be  used  as  a 
depot  for  the  infantry  and  cavalry  reserves,  who  could  await 
there  the  order  for  crossing  the  Rhine. 

"  Ah  !  my  lads,  my  poor  lads  !  "  said  Sainte  Claire  Deville  to 
his  Ecole  Normale  students,  "it  is  all  up  with  us !  "  And 
he  was  seen,  between  two  experiments,  wiping  his  eyes  with 
the  corner  of  his  laboratory  apron. 

The  students,  with  the  ordinary  confidence  of  youth,  could 
not  believe  that  an  invasion  should  be  so  imminent.  How- 
ever, in  spite  of  the  privilege  which  frees  Normaliens  from  any 
military  service  in  exchange  for  a  ten  years'  engagement  at 
the  University,  they  put  patriotic  duty  above  any  future 
University   appointments,   and   entered   the   ranks   as   private 


180  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

soldiers.  Those  who  had  been  favoured  by  being  immediately 
incorporated  in  a  battalion  of  chasseurs  d  pied  the  depot  of 
which  was  at  Vincennes,  spent  their  last  evening — their  vigil 
as  they  called  it — in  the  drawing-room  of  the  sub-director  of 
the  Ecole,  Bertin.  Sainte  Claire  Deville  and  Pasteur  were 
there,  also  Duruy,  whose  three  sons  had  enlisted.  Pasteur's 
son,  aged  eighteen,  was  also  on  the  eve  of  his  departure. 

Every  one  of  the  students  at  the  Ecole  Normale  enlisted, 
some  as  chasseurs  a  pied,  some  in  a  line  regiment,  others  with 
the  marines,  in  the  artillery,  even  with  the  franc  tireurs. 
Pasteur  wished  to  be  enrolled  in  the  garde  nationale  with  Duruy 
and  Bertin,  but  he  had  to  be  reminded  that  a  half-paralysed 
man  was  unfit  for  service.  After  the  departure  of  all  the 
students,  the  Ecole  Normale  fell  into  the  silence  of  deserted 
houses.  M.  Bouillier,  the  director,  and  Bertin  decided  to  turn 
it  into  an  ambulance,  a  sort  of  home  for  the  Normaliens  who 
were  stationed  in  various  quarters  of  Paris. 

Pasteur,  unable  to  serve  his  country  except  by  his  scientific 
researches,  had  the  firm  intention  of  continuing  his  work;  but 
he  was  overwhelmed  by  the  reverses  which  fell  upon  France, 
the  idea  of  the  bloodshed  and  of  his  invaded  country  oppressed 
him  like  a  monomania. 

"Do  not  stay  in  Paris,"  Bertin  said  to  him,  echoed  by  Dr. 
Godelier.  "You  have  no  right  to  stay;  you  would  be  a  use- 
less mouth  during  the  siege,"  he  added,  almost  cheerfully, 
earnestly  desiring  to  see  his  friend  out  of  harm's  way.  Pasteur 
allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded,  and  started  for  Arbois  on 
September  6,  his  heart  aching  for  the  sorrows  of  France. 

Some  notes  and  letters  enable  us  to  follow  him  there,  in 
the  daily  detail  of  his  life,  amongst  his  books,  his  plans  of 
future  work,  and  now  and  then  his  outbursts  of  passionate 
grief.  He  tried  to  return  to  the  books  he  loved,  to  feel  over 
again  the  attraction  of  ' '  all  that  is  great  and  beautiful ' '  to 
quote  a  favourite  phrase.  He  read  at  that  time  Laplace's 
Exposition  du  Systeme  du  Monde,  and  even  copied  out  some 
fragments,  general  ideas,  concurring  with  his  own.  The  vision 
of  a  Galileo  or  a  Newton  rising  through  a  series  of  inductions 
from  "particular  phenomena  to  others  more  far-reaching,  and 
from  those  to  the  general  laws  of  Nature,"  on  this  earth, 
"itself  so  small  a  part  of  the  solar  system,  and  disappearing 
entirely  in  the  immensity  of  the  heavens,  of  which  that  system 
is  but  an  unimportant  corner," — that  vision  enveloped  Pasteur 


1870—1872  181 

with  the  twofold  feeUng  with  which  every  man  must  be  im- 
bued :  humihty  before  the  Great  Mystery,  and  admiration  for 
those  who,  raising  a  corner  of  the  veil,  prove  that  genius  is 
divinely  inspired.  Such  reading  helped  Pasteur  through  the 
sad  time  of  anxious  waiting,  and  he  would  repeat  as  in  brighter 
days,  "  Lab  or  emus." 

But  sometimes,  when  He  was  sitting  quietly  with  his  wife 
and  daughter,  the  trumpet  call  would  sound,  with  which  the 
Arbois  crier  preceded  the  proclaiming  of  news.  Then  every- 
thing was  forgotten,  the  universal  order  of  things  of  no  account, 
and  Pasteur's  anguished  soul  would  concentrate  itself  on  that 
imperceptible  corner  of  the  universe,  France,  his  suffering 
country.  He  would  go  downstairs,  mix  with  groups  standing 
on  the  little  bridge  across  the  Cuisance,  listen  breathlessly  to 
the  official  communication ,  and  sadly  go  back  to  the  room  where 
the  memories  of  his  father  only  emphasized  the  painful  contrast 
with  the  present  time.  In  the  most  prominent  place  hung 
a  large  medallion  of  General  Bonaparte,  by  the  Franc-Comtois 
Huguenin,  the  habit  of  authority  visible  in  the  thin  energetic 
face ;  then  a  larger  effigy  in  bronzed  plaster  of  Napoleon  in 
profile ,  in  a  very  simple  uniform ;  by  the  mantelpiece  a  litho- 
graph of  the  little  King  of  Eome  with  his  curly  head ;  on  the 
bookshelves,  well  within  reach,  books  on  the  Great  Epoch, 
read  over  and  over  again  by  the  old  soldier  who  had  died  in  the 
humble  room  which  still  reflected  some  of  the  Imperial  glory. 

That  glory,  that  legend  had  enveloped  the  childhood  and 
youth  of  Pasteur,  who,  as  he  advanced  in  life,  still  preserved 
the  same  enthusiasm.  His  imagination  pictured  the  Emperor, 
calm  in  the  midst  of  battles,  or  reviewing  his  troops  sur- 
rounded by  an  escort  of  field  marshals,  entering  as  a  sovereign 
a  capital  not  his  own,  then  overwhelmed  by  numbers  at 
Waterloo,  and  finally  condemned  to  exile  and  inactivity,  and 
dying  in  a  long  drawn  agony.  Glorious  or  lugubrious,  those 
visions  came  back  to  him  with  poignant  insistency  in  those 
days  of  September,  1870.  What  was  Waterloo  compared  to 
Sedan  !  The  departure  for  St.  Helena  had  the  grandeur  of  "the 
end  of  an  epic ;  it  seemed  almost  enviable  by  the  side  of  that 
last  episode  of  the  Second  Empire,  when  Napoleon  III,  van- 
quished, spared  by  the  death  which  he  wooed,  left  Sedan  by 
the  Donchery  road  to  enter  the  cottage  where  Bismarck  was  to 
inform  him  of  the  rendezvous  given  by  the  King  of  Prussia. 
The  Emperor  had  now  but  a  shadow  of  power,  having  made 


182  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  Empress  Eegent  before  he  left  Paris ;  it  was  therefore  not 
the  sword  of  France,  but  his  own,  that  he  was  about  to  sur- 
render. But  he  thought  he  might  hope  that  the  King  of 
Prussia  would  show  clemency  to  the  French  army  and  people, 
having  many  times  declared  that  he  made  war  on  the  Emperor 
and  not  on  France. 

"Can  it  be  credited,"  said  Bismarck,  speaking  afterwards 
of  that  interview,  "that  he  actually  believed  in  our  gener- 
osity! "  The  chancellor  added,  speaking  of  that  somewhat 
protracted  tete-a-tete,  "  I  felt  as  I  used  to  in  my  youth,  when 
my  partner  in  a  cotillon  was  a  girl  to  whom  I  did  not  quite 
know  what  to  say,  and  whom  nobody  would  fetch  away  for  a 
turn!  " 

Napoleon  III  and  the  King  of  Prussia  met  in  the  Chateau  of 
Bellevue,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sedan,  opposite  a  peninsula 
henceforth  known  by  the  sad  name  of  "Camp  of  Misery." 
The  Emperor  looked  for  the  last  time  upon  his  83,000  soldiers, 
disarmed,  starving,  waiting  in  the  mud  for  the  Prussian  escort 
which  was  to  convey  them  as  prisoners  far  beyond  the  Ehine. 
Wilhelm  did  not  even  pronounce  the  word  peace. 

Jules  Favre,  taking  possession  on  September  6  of  the  depart- 
ment of  Foreign  Affairs,  recalled  to  the  diplomatic  agents  the 
fall  of  the  Empire  and  the  words  of  the  King  of  Prussia ;  then 
in  an  unaccustomed  outburst  of  eloquence  exclaimed  :  "  Does 
the  King  of  Prussia  wish  to  continue  an  impious  struggle  which 
will  be  as  fatal  to  him  as  to  us?  Does  he  wish  to  give  to  the 
world  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  cruel  spectacle  of  two 
nations  destroying  each  other  and  forgetful  of  human  feelings, 
of  reason  and  of  science,  heaping  up  ruin  and  death?  Let  him 
then  assume  the  responsibility  before  the  world  and  before 
posterity  !  ' '  And  then  followed  the  celebrated  phrase  with 
which  he  has  been  violently  and  iniquitously  reproached,  and 
which  expressed  the  unanimous  sentiment  of  France  :  ' '  We 
will  not  concede  one  inch  of  our  territory  nor  a  stone  of  our 
fortifications." 

Bismarck  refused  the  interview  Jules  Favre  asked  of  him 
(September  10),  under  the  pretext  that  the  new  Government 
was  irregular.  The  enemy  was  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to 
Paris.  The  French  city  was  resolved  to  resist ;  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  oxen  were  being  corralled  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  ; 
poor  people  from  the  suburbs  were  coming  to  take  refuge  in  the 
city.     On  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  the  statue  which  repre- 


1870—1872  183 

sents  the  city  of  Strasburg  was  covered  with  flowers  and  flags, 
and  seemed  to  incarnate  the  idea  of  the  Patrie  itself. 

Articles  and  letters  came  to  Arbois  in  that  early  Septem- 
ber, bringing  an  echo  of  the  sorrows  of  Paris.  Pasteur  was 
then  reading  the  works  of  General  Foy,  wherein  he  found 
thoughts  in  accordance  with  his  own,  occasionally  copying  out 
such  passages  as  the  following  :  ' '  Eight  and  Might  struggle 
for  the  world  ;  Eight ,  which  constitutes  and  preserves  Society ; 
Might,  which  overcomes  nations  and  bleeds  them  to  death." 

General  Poy  fought  for  France  during  twenty-five  years, 
and,  writing  in  1820,  recalled  with  a  patriotic  shudder  the 
horrors  of  foreign  invasions.  Long  after  peace  was  signed,  by 
a  chance  meeting  in  a  street  in  Paris,  General  Foy  found 
himself  face  to  face  witli  Wellington.  The  sight  was  so  odious 
to  him  that  he  spoke  of  this  meeting  in  the  Chamhre  with  an 
accent  of  sorrowful  humiliation  which  breathed  the  sadness  of 
Waterloo  over  the  whole  assembly.  Pasteur  could  well  under- 
stand the  long  continued  vibration  of  that  suffering  chord,  he, 
who  never  afterwards  could  speak  without  a  thrill  of  sorrow  of 
that  war  which  Germany,  in  defiance  of  humanity,  was  inexcus- 
ably pursuing. 

It  was  the  fourth  time  in  less  than  a  hundred  years  that  a 
Prussian  invasion  overflowed  into  France.  But  instead  of 
42,000  Prussians,  scattered  in  1792  over  the  sacred  soil  of  the 
Patrie — Pasteur  pronounced  the  word  with  the  faith  and  ten- 
derness of  a  true  son  of  France — there  were  now  618,000  men 
to  fight  285,000  French. 

The  thought  that  they  had  been  armed  in  secret  for  the 
conquest  of  neighbouring  lands,  the  memory  of  France's 
optimism  until  that  diplomatic  incident,  invented  so  that 
France  might  stumble  over  it,  and  the  inaction  of  Europe, 
inspired  Pasteur  with  reflections  which  he  confided  to  his 
pupil  Eaulin.  "  What  folly,  what  blindness,"  he  wrote 
(September  17),  "there  are  in  the  inertia  of  Austria,  Eussia, 
England !  What  ignorance  in  our  army  leaders  of  the 
respective  forces  of  the  two  nations !  We  savants  were  in- 
deed right  when  we  deplored  the  poverty  of  the  department  of 
Public  Instruction !  The  real  cause  of  our  misfortunes  lies 
there.  It  is  not  with  impunity — as  it  will  one  day  be  recognized, 
too  late — that  a  great  nation  is  allowed  to  lose  its  intellectual 
standard.  But,  as  you  say,  if  we  rise  again  from  those  disas- 
ters, we  shall  again  see  our  statesmen  lose  themselves  in  endless 


184  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

discussions  on  forms  of  government  and  abstract  political  ques- 
tions instead  of  going  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  We  are  paying 
the  penalty  of  fifty  years'  forgetfulness  of  science,  of  its  con- 
ditions of  development,  of  its  immense  influence  on  the  destiny 
of  a  great  people,  and  of  all  that  might  have  assisted  the 
diffusion  of  light.  ...  I  cannot  go  on,  all  this  hurts  me.  I 
try  to  put  away  all  such  memories,  and  also  the  sight  of  our 
terrible  distress,  in  which  it  seems  that  a  desperate  resistance 
is  the  only  hope  we  have  left.  I  wish  that  France  may  fight  to 
her  last  man,  to  her  last  fortress.  I  wish  that  ihe  war  may 
be  prolonged  until  the  winter,  when,  the  elements  aiding  us, 
all  these  Vandals  may  perish  of  cold  and  distress.  Every  one 
of  my  future  works  will  bear  on  its  title  page  the  words  : 
'  Hatred  to  Prussia.     Eevenge  !  revenge  !  '  " 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Psalms  where  the  captives  of 
Israel,  led  to  Babylonian  rivers,  w^eep  at  the  memory  of 
Jerusalem.  After  swearing  never  to  forget  their  country,  they 
wish  their  enemies  every  misfortune,  and  hurl  this  last  impre- 
cation at  Babylon:  "Blessed  shall  he  be  that  taketh  thy 
children  and  throweth  them  against  the  stones."^  One  of  the 
most  Christlike  souls  of  our  time,  Henri  Perreyve,  speaking 
of  Poland,  of  vanquished  and  oppressed  nations,  quoted  this 
Psalm  and  exclaimed  :  "O  Anger,  man's  Anger,  how  difficult 
it  is  to  drive  thee  out  of  man's  heart !  and  how  irresistible  are 
the  flames  kindled  by  the  insolence  of  injustice!"  Those 
flames  were  kindled  in  the  soul  of  Pasteur,  full  as  it  was  of 
human  tenderness,  and  they  burst  out  in  that  sobbing  cry  of 
despair. 

On  that  17th  of  September,  the  day  before  Paris  was  invested, 
Jules  Favre  made  another  attempt  to  obtain  peace.  He  pub- 
lished an  account  of  that  interview  which  took  place  at  the 
Chateau  of  Ferrieres,  near  Meaux  ;  this  printed  account  reached 
every  town  in  France,  and  was  read  with  grief  and  anger. 

Jules  Favre  had  deluded  himself  into  thinking  that  vic- 
torious Prussia  would  limit  its  demands  to  a  war  indemnity, 
probably  a  formidable  one.  But  Bismarck,  besides  the  in- 
demnity, intended  to  take  a  portion  of  French  soil,  and  claimed 
Strasburg  first  of  all.  "It  is  the  key  of  the  house;  I  must 
have  it."  And  with  Strasburg  he  wanted  the  whole  Depart- 
ment of  the  Haut-Rhin,  that  of  the  Bas-Rhhi,  Metz,  and  a 
part  of  the  Department  of  Moselle.     Jules  Favre,  character- 

^  Ps.  cxxxvii.  9. 


1870—1872  185 

istically  French,  exhausted  his  eloquence  in  putting  sentiment 
into  politics,  spoke  of  European  rights,  of  the  right  of  the 
people  to  dispose  of  themselves,  tried  to  bring  out  the  fact  that 
a  brutal  annexation  was  in  direct  opposition  to  the  progress  of 
civilization.  "I  know  very  well,"  said  Bismarck,  "that  they 
(meaning  the  Alsatians  and  Lorrainers)  do  not  want  us ;  they 
will  give  us  a  deal  of  trouble,  but  we  must  annex  them."  In 
the  event  of  a  future  war  Prussia  was  to  have  the  advantage. 
All  this  was  said  with  an  authoritative  courtesy,  an  insolent 
tranquillity,  through  which  contempt  for  men  was  visible,  evi- 
dently the  best  means  of  governing  them  in  Bismarck's  eyes. 
As  Jules  Favre  was  pleading  the  cause  of  heroic  Strasburg, 
whose  long  resistance  was  the  admiration  of  Paris,  "  Strasburg 
will  now  fall  into  our  hands,"  said  Bismarck  coldly;  "it  is 
but  a  question  for  engineers ;  therefore  I  request  that  the 
garrison  should  surrender  as  prisoners  of  war." 

Jules  Favre  "leapt  in  his  grief" — the  words  are  his — but 
King  Wilhelm  exacted  this  condition.  Jules  Favre,  almost 
breaking  down,  turning  away  to  hide  the  tears  that  welled  into 
his  eyes,  ended  the  interview  with  these  words  :  "  It  is  an  inde- 
finite struggle  between  two  nations  who  should  go  hand  in  hand. ' ' 

Traces  of  this  patriotic  anguish  are  to  be  found  in  one  of 
Pasteur's  notebooks,  as  well  as  a  circular  addressed  by  Jules 
Favre  to  the  diplomatic  representatives  in  answer  to  certain 
points  disputed  by  Bismarck.  Pasteur  admiringly  took  note 
of  the  following  passage  :  "I  know  not  what  destinies  Fate 
has  in  store  for  us.  But  I  do  feel  most  deeply  that  if  I  had  to 
choose  between  the  present  situation  of  France  and  that  of 
Prussia,  I  should  decide  for  the  former.  Better  far  our  suffer- 
ings, our  perils,  our  sacrifices,  than  the  cruel  and  inflexible 
ambition  of  our  foe." 

"We  must  preserve  hope  until  the  end,"  wrote  Pasteur 
after  reading  the  above^  "  say  nothing  to  discourage  each  other, 
and  wish  ardently  for  a  prolonged  struggle.  Let  us  think  of 
hopeful  things;  Bazaine  may  save  us."  .  .  .  How  many 
French  hearts  were  sharing  that  hope  at  the  very  time  when 
Bazaine  was  preparing  to  betray  Metz,  his  troops  and  his  flag ! 

' '  Should  we  not  cry  :  '  Happy  are  the  dead  ! '  "  wrote  Pasteur 
a  few  days  after  the  news  burst  upon  France  of  that  army  lost 
without  being  allowed  to  fight,  of  that  city  of  Metz,  the 
strongest  in  France,  surrendered  without  a  struggle  ! 

Through  all  Pasteur's  anxieties  about  the  war,  certain  obser- 


186  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

vations,  certain  projected  experiments  resounded  in  his  mind 
like  the  hours  that  a  clock  strikes,  unheeded  but  not  unheard, 
in  a  house  visited  by  death.  He  could  not  put  them  away  from 
him,  they  were  part  of  his  very  life. 

Any  sort  of  laboratory  work  was  difficult  for  him  in  the 
tanner's  house,  which  had  remained  the  joint  property  of  him- 
self and  his  sister.  His  brother-in-law  had  continued  Joseph 
Pasteur's  trade.  Pasteur  applied  his  spirit  of  observation  to 
everything  around  him,  and  took  the  opportunity  of  studying 
the  fermentation  of  tan.  He  would  ask  endless  questions, 
trying  to  discover  the  scientific  reason  of  every  process  and 
every  routine.  Whilst  his  sister  was  making  bread  he  would 
study  the  raising  of  the  crust,  the  influence  of  air  in  the  knead- 
ing of  the  dough,  and  his  imagination  rising  as  usual  from  a 
minor  point  to  the  greatest  problems,  he  began  to  seek  for  a 
means  of  increasing  the  nutritive  powers  of  bread,  and  con- 
sequently of  lowering  its  price. 

The  Salut  Public  of  December  20  contained  a  notice  on  that 
very  subject,  w^hich  Pasteur  transcribed.  The  Central  Com- 
mission of  Hygiene  which  included  among  its  members  Sainte 
Claire  Deville,  Wurtz,  Bouchardat  and  Trelat,  had  tried,  when 
dealing  with  this  question  of  bread  (a  vital  one  during  the 
siege),  to  prove  to  the  Parisians  that  bread  is  the  more  whole- 
some for  containing  a  little  bran.  "  With  what  emotion," 
wrote  Pasteur,  "I  have  just  read  all  those  names  dear  to 
science,  greater  now  before  their  fellow-citizens  and  before 
posterity.  Why  could  I  not  share  their  sufferings  and 
their  dangers  ! ' '  He  would  have  added  ' '  and  their  work 
if  some  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences  reports  had  reached  him. 

The  history  of  the  Academy  during  the  war  is  w^orthy  of 
brief  mention.  Moreover  it  was  too  deeply  interesting  to 
Pasteur,  too  constantly  in  his  thoughts,  not  to  be  considered 
as  forming  part  of  his  biography. 

During  the  first  period,  the  Academy,  imagining,  like  the 
rest  of  France,  that  there  was  no  doubt  of  a  favourable  issue 
of  the  war,  continued  its  purely  scientific  task.  When  the 
first  defeats  were  announced,  the  habitual  communications 
ceased,  and  the  Academy,  unable  to  think  of  anything  but  the 
war,  held  sittings  of  three-quarters  of  an  hour  or  even  less. 

One  of  the  correspondents  of  the  Institute,  the  surgeon 
Sedillot,  who  was  in  Alsace  at  the  head  of  an  ambulance  corps, 
and  who  himself  performed  as  many  as  fifteen  amputations  in 


1870—1872  187 

One  day,  addressed  two  noteworthy  letters  to  the  President  of 
the  Academy.  Those  letters  mark  a  date  in  the  history  of 
surgery,  and  show  how  restricted  was  then  in  France  the 
share  of  some  of  Pasteur's  ideas  at  the  very  time  when  in 
other  countries  they  were  adopted  and  followed.  Lister,  the 
celebrated  English  surgeon,  having,  he  said,  meditated  on 
Pasteur's  theory  of  germs,  and  proclaimed  himself  his  fol- 
lower, convinced  that  complications  and  infection  of  wounds 
were  caused  by  their  giving  access  to  living  organisms  and  in- 
fectious germs,  elements  of  trouble,  often  of  death,  had  already 
in  1867  inaugurated  a  method  of  treatment.  He  attempted  the 
destruction  of  germs  floating  in  air  by  means  of  a  vaporizer 
filled  with  a  carbolic  solution,  then  isolated  and  preserved  the 
wound  from  the  contact  of  the  air.  Sponges,  drainage  tubes, 
etc.,  were  subjected  to  minute  precautions;  in  one  word,  he 
created  antisepsis.  Four  months  before  the  war  he  had  pro- 
pounded the  principles  which  should  guide  surgeons,  but  it 
occurred  to  no  one  in  France,  in  the  first  battles,  to  apply  the 
new  method.  "The  horrible  mortality  amongst  the  wounded 
in  battle,"  writes  Sedillot,  "calls  for  the  attention  of  all  the 
friends  of  science  and  humanity.  The  surgeon's  art,  hesitat- 
ing and  disconcerted,  pursues  a  doctrine  whose  rules  seem  to 
flee  before  research.  .  .  .  Places  where  there  are  wounded  are 
recognizable  by  the  fetor  of  suppuration  and  gangrene." 

Hundreds  and  thousands  of  wounded,  their  faces  pale,  but 
full  of  hope  and  desire  to  live,  succumbed  between  the  eighth 
and  tenth  day  to  gangrene  and  erysipelas.  Those  failures 
of  the  surgery  of  the  past  are  plain  to  us  now  that  the  doctrine 
of  germs  has  explained  everything;  but,  at  that  time,  such  an 
avowal  of  impotence  before  the  mysterious  contagium  sui 
generis,  which,  the  doctors  averred,  eluded  all  research,  and 
such  awful  statistics  of  mortality  embittered  the  anguish  of 
defeat. 

The  Academy  then  attempted  to  take  a  share  in  the  national 
co-operation  by  making  a  special  study  of  any  subject  which 
interested  the  public  health  and  defence.  A  sitting  on  methods 
of  steering  balloons  was  succeeded  by  another  on  various  means 
of  preserving  meat  during  the  siege.  Then  came  an  anxious 
inquiry  into  modes  of  alimentation  of  infants.  At  the  end  of 
October  there  were  but  20,000  litres  of  milk  per  day  to  be  pro- 
cured in  the  whole  of  Paris,  and  the  healthy  were  implored  to 
abstain  from  it.     It  was  a  question  of  life  and  death  for  young 


188  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

children,  and  already  many  little  coffins  were  daily  to  be  seen 
on  the  road  to  the  cemetery. 

Thus  visions  of  death  amongst  soldiers  in  their  prime  and 
children  in  their  infancy  hung  over  the  Academy  meeting  hall. 
It  was  at  one  of  those  mournful  sittings,  on  a  dark  autumn 
afternoon,  that  Chevreul,  an  octogenarian  member  of  the  Insti- 
tute, who,  like  Pasteur,  had  believed  in  civilization  and  in  the 
binding  together  of  nations  through  science,  art  and  letters, 
looking  at  the  sacks  of  earth  piled  outside  the  windows  to  save 
the  library  from  the  bursting  shells,  exclaimed  in  loud  desolate 
tones — 

"And  yet  we  are  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  a  few 
months  ago  the  French  did  not  even  think  of  a  war  which 
has  put  their  capital  into  a  state  of  siege  and  traced  around  its 
walls  a  desert  zone  where  he  who  sowed  does  not  reap  !  And 
there  are  public  universities  where  they  teach  the  Beautiful, 
the  True,  and  the  Eight." 

"Might  goes  before  Eight,"  Bismarck  said.  A  German 
journalist  invented  another  phrase  which  went  the  round  of 
Europe  :  "the  psychological  moment  for  bombardment."  On 
January  5,  one  of  the  first  Prussian  shells  sack  into  the  garden 
of  the  Ecole  Normale ;  another  burst  in  the  very  ambulance 
of  the  Ecole.  Bertin,  the  sub-director,  rushed  through  the 
suffocating  smoke  and  ascertained  that  none  of  the  patients  was 
hurt ;  he  found  the  breech  between  two  beds.  The  miserable 
patients  dragged  themselves  downstairs  to  the  lecture  rooms 
on  the  ground  floor,  not  a  much  safer  refuge. 

From  the  heights  of  Chatillon  the  enemy's  batteries  were 
bombarding  all  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine,  the  Prussians,  re- 
gardless of  the  white  flags  bearing  the  red  cross  of  Geneva,  were 
aiming  at  the  Val-de-Grace  and  the  Pantheon.  "Where  is 
the  Germany  of  our  dreams?"  wrote  Paul  de  St.  Victor  on 
January  9,  "the  Germany  of  the  poets?  Between  her  and 
France  an  abyss  of  hatred  has  opened,  a  Ehine  of  blood  and 
tears  that  no  peace  can  ever  bridge  over," 

On  that  same  date,  Chevreul  read  the  following  declaration 
to  the  Academy  of  Science — 

The  Garden  of  Medicinal  Plants,  founded  in  Paris 

by  an  edict  of  King  Louis  XIII, 

dated  January,  1826, 

Converted  into  the  Museum  of  Natural  History 


1870—1872  189 

by  a  decree  of  the  Convention  on  June  10,  1793, 

was  Bombarded, 

under  the  reign  of  Wilhelm  I  King  of 

Prussia,  Count  von  Bismarck,  Chancellor, 

by  the  Prussian  army,  during  the  night 

of  January  8-9,  1871. 

It  had  until  then  been  respected  by  all  parties 

and  all  powers,  national  or 

foreign. 

Pasteur,  on  reading  this  protest,  regretted  more  than  ever 
that  he  had  not  been  there  to  sign  it.  It  then  occurred  to  him 
that  he  too  might  give  Vent  to  the  proud  plaint  of  the  van- 
quished from  his  little  house  at  Arbois.  He  remembered  with 
a  sudden  bitterness  the  diploma  he  had  received  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bonn.  Many  years  had  passed  since  the  time  in 
the  First  Empire  when  one  of  the  110  French  Departments  had 
been  that  of  Rhine  and  Moselle,  with  Coblentz  as  its  prefecture 
and  Bonn  and  Zimmern  as  sous-prefectures.  When,  in  1815, 
Prussia's  iron  hand  seized  again  those  Ehenish  provinces  which 
had  become  so  French  at  heart,  the  Prussian  king  and  his 
ministers  hit  upon  the  highly  politic  idea  of  founding  a  Univer- 
sity on  the  picturesque  banks  of  the  Ehine,  thus  morally  con- 
quering the  people  after  reducing  them  by  force.  That 
University  had  been  a  great  success  and  had  become  most 
prosperous.  The  Strasburg  Faculty  under  the  Second  Empire, 
with  its  few  professors  and  its  general  penury,  seemed  very 
poor  compared  to  the  Bonn  University,  with  its  fifty-three 
professors  and  its  vast  laboratories  of  chemistry,  physics  and 
medicine,  and  even  a  museum  of  antiquities.  Pasteur  and 
Duruy  had  often  exchanged  remarks  on  that  subject.  But  that 
rivalry  between  the  two  Faculties  was  of  a  noble  nature,  ani- 
mated as  it  was  by  the  great  feeUng  that  science  is  superior  to 
national  distinctions.  King  Wilhelm  had  once  said,  "Prussia's 
conquests  must  be  of  the  moral  kind,"  and  Pasteur  had  not 
thought  of  any  other  conquests. 

When  in  1868  the  University  of  Bonn  conferred  upon  him 
the  diploma  of  Doctor  of  Medicine ,  saying  that  ' '  by  his  very 
penetrating  experiments ,  he  had  much  contributed  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  history  of  the  generation  of  micro-organisms,  and 
had  happily  advanced  the  progress  of  the  science  of  fermenta- 
tions," he  had  been  much  pleased  at  this  acknowledgment  of 


190  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  future  opened  to  medical  studies  by  his  work,  and  he  was 
proud  to  show  the  Degree  he  had  received. 

"Now,"  he  wrote  (January  18,  1871),  to  the  Head  of  the 
Faculty  of  Medicine,  after  recalling  his  former  sentiments, 
* '  now  the  sight  of  that  parchment  is  odious  to  me ,  and  I  feel 
offended  at  seeing  my  name,  with  the  qualification  of  Virum 
clarissimum  that  you  have  given  it,  placed  under  a  name  which 
is  henceforth  an  object  of  execration  to  my  country,  that  of 
Rex  Gulielmus. 

' '  While  highly  asseverating  my  profound  respect  for  you , 
Sir,  and  for  the  celebrated  professors  who  have  af&xed  their 
signatures  to  the  decision  of  the  members  of  your  Order,  I 
am  called  upon  by  my  conscience  to  ask  you  to  efface  my 
name  from  the  archives  of  your  Faculty,  and  to  take  back 
that  diploma,  as  a  sign  of  the  indignation  inspired  in  a  French 
scientist  by  the  barbarity  and  hypocrisy  of  him  who,  in  order 
to  satisfy  his  criminal  pride,  persists  in  the  massacre  of  two 
great  nations."     Pasteur's  protest  ended  with  these  words — 

"  Written  at  Arbois  (Jura)  on  January  18,  1871,  after  read- 
ing the  mark  of  infamy  inscribed  on  the  forehead  of  your  King 
by  the  illustrious  director  of  the  Museum  of  Natural  History 
M.  Chevreul." 

' '  This  letter  will  not  have  much  weight  with  a  people  whose 
principles  differ  so  totally  from  those  that  inspire  us,"  said 
Pasteur,  "  but  it  will  at  least  echo  the  indignation  of  French 
scientists." 

He  made  a  collection  of  stories,  of  episodes,  and  letters, 
which  fell  in  his  way ;  amongst  other  things  we  find  an  open 
letter  from  General  Chanzy  to  the  commandant  of  the  Prussian 
troops  at  Vendome,  denouncing  the  insults,  outrages,  and  in- 
excusable violence  of  the  Prussians  towards  the  inhabitants  of 
St.  Calais,  who  had  shown  great  kindness  to  the  enemy's  sick 
and  wounded. 

"You  respond  by  insolence,  destruction  and  pillage  to  the 
generosity  with  which  we  treat  your  prisoners  and  wounded. 
I  indignantly  protest,  in  the  name  of  humanity  and  of  the 
rights  of  men,  which  you  trample  under  foot." 

Pasteur  also  gathered  up  tales  of  bravery,  of  heroism,  and  of 
resignation — that  form  of  heroism  so  often  illustrated  by  women 
— during  the  terrible  siege  of  Paris.  And,  from  all  those  things, 
arose  the  psychology  of  war  in  its  two  aspects  :  in  the  invading 
army  a  spirit  of  conquest  carried  to  oppression,  and  even  apart 


1870—1872  191 

from  the  thrilling  moments  of  battle,  giving  to  hatred  and 
cruelty  a  cold-blooded  sanction  of  discipline ;  in  the  vanquished 
nation,  an  irrepressible  revolt,  an  intoxication  of  sacrifice. 
Those  who  have  not  seen  war  do  not  know  what  love  of  the 
mother  country  means. 

France  was  the  more  loved  that  she  was  more  oppressed ; 
she  inspired  her  true  sons  with  an  infinite  tenderness.  Sully- 
Prudhomme,  the  poet  of  pensive  youth,  renouncing  his  love  for 
Humanity  in  general,  promised  himself  that  he  would  hence- 
forth devote  his  life  to  the  exclusive  love  of  France.  A  greater 
poet  than  he,  Victor  Hugo,  wrote  at  that  time  the  first  part 
of  his  Annee  Terrible,  with  its  mingled  devotion  and  despair. 

The  death  of  Henri  Eegnault  was  one  of  the  sad  episodes  of 
the  war.  This  brilliant  young  painter — he  was  only  twenty- 
seven  years  of  age — enlisted  as  a  garde  nationale,  though 
exempt  by  law  from  any  military  service  through  being  a 
laureate  of  the  prix  de  Rome.''  He  did  his  duty  valiantly,  and 
on  January  19,  at  the  last  sortie  attempted  by  the  Parisians,  at 
Buzenval,  the  last  Prussian  shot  struck  him  in  the  forehead. 
The  Academie  des  Sciences,  at  its  sitting  of  January  23,  ren- 
dered homage  to  him  whose  coffin  enclosed  such  dazzling 
prospects  and  some  of  the  glory  of  France.  The  very  heart  of 
Paris  was  touched,  and  a  great  sadness  was  felt  at  the  funeral 
procession  of  the  great  artist  who  seemed  an  ideal  type  of  all 
the  youth  and  talent  so  heroically  sacrificed — and  all  in  vain — 
for  the  surrender  of  Paris  had  just  been  officially  announced. 

Eegnault's  father,  the  celebrated  physicist,  a  member  of  the 
Institute,  was  at  Geneva  when  he  received  this  terrible  blow. 
Another  grief — not  however  comparable  to  the  despair  of  a 
bereaved  parent — befell  him — an  instance  of  the  odious  side  of 
war,  not  in  its  horrors,  its  pools  of  blood  and  burnt  dwellings, 
but  in  its  premeditated  cruelty.  Eegnault  had  left  his  labora- 
tory utensils  in  his  rooms  at  the  Sevres  porcelain  manufactory, 
of  which  he  was  the  manager.  Everything  was  apparently 
left  in  the  same  place,  not  a  window  was  broken,  no  locks 
forced;  but  a  Prussian,  evidently  an  expert,  had  been  there. 
"Nothing  seemed  changed,"  writes  J.  B.  Dumas,  "in  that 
abode  of  science ,  and  yet  everything  was  destroyed ;  the  glass 
tubes  of  barometers,  thermometers,  etc.,  were  broken;  scales 

^  Prix  de  Rome.  A  competition  takes  place  every  year  amongst  the 
students  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  for  this  prize;  the  successful  com- 
petitor is  sent  to  Eome  for  a  year  at  the  expense  of  the  Ecole.     [Trans.] 


192  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

and  other  similar  instruments  had  been  carefully  knocked  out  of 
shape  with  a  hammer."  In  a  corner  was  a  heap  of  ashes ;  they 
were  the  registers,  notes,  manuscripts,  all  Eegnault's  work  of 
the  last  ten  years.  "  Such  cruelty,"  exclaimed  J.  B.  Dumas, 
"  is  unexampled  in  history.  The  Eoman  soldier  who  butchered 
Archimedes  in  the  heat  of  the  onslaught  may  be  excused — he 
did  not  know  him ;  but  with  what  sacrilegious  meanness  could 
such  a  work  of  destruction  as  this  be  accomplished  !  !  !  " 

On  the  very  day  when  the  Academic  des  Sciences  was  con- 
doling with  Henri  Eegnault's  sorrowing  father,  Pasteur, 
anxious  at  having  had  no  news  of  his  son,  who  had  been  fight- 
ing before  Hericourt,  determined  to  go  and  look  for  him  in  the 
ranks  of  the  Eastern  Army  Corps.  By  Poligny  and  Lons-le- 
Saulnier,  the  roads  were  full  of  stragglers  from  the  various 
regiments  left  several  days  behind,  their  route  completely  lost, 
who  begged  for  bread  as  they  marched,  barely  covered  by  the 
tattered  remnants  of  their  uniforms.  The  main  body  of  the 
army  was  on  the  way  to  Besangon,  a  sad  procession  of  French 
soldiers,  hanging  their  heads  under  the  cold  grey  sky  and  tramp- 
ing painfully  in  the  snow. 

Bourbaki,  the  general-in-chief ,  a  hero  of  African  battlefields, 
was  becoming  more  and  more  unnerved  by  the  combinations 
of  this  war.  Whilst  the  Minister,  in  a  dispatch  from  Bordeaux, 
had  ordered  him  to  move  back  towards  Dole,  to  prevent  the 
taking  of  Dijon,  then  to  hurry  to  Nevers  or  Joigny,  where 
20,000  men  would  be  ready  to  be  incorporated,  Bourbaki,  over- 
whelmed by  the  lamentable  spectacle  under  his  eyes,  could  see 
no  resource  for  his  corps  but  a  last  line  of  retreat,  Pontarlier. 

It  was  among  that  stream  of  soldiers  that  Pasteur  attempted 
to  find  his  son.  His  old  friend  and  neighbour,  Jules  Vercel, 
saw  him  start,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  daughter,  on  Tues- 
day, January  24,  in  a  half  broken  down  old  carriage,  the  last 
that  was  left  in  the  town.  After  journeying  for  some  hours 
in  the  snow,  the  sad  travellers  spent  the  night  in  a  little  way- 
side inn  near  Montrond ;  the  old  carriage  with  its  freight  of 
traveling  boxes  stood  on  the  roadside  like  a  gipsy's  caravan. 
The  next  morning  they  went  on  through  a  pine  forest  where  the 
deep  silence  was  unbroken  save  by  the  falling  masses  of  snow 
from  the  spreading  branches.  They  slept  at  Censeau,  the  next 
day  at  Chaff ois,  and  it  was  only  on  the  Friday  that  they  reached 
Pontarlier,  by  roads  made  almost  impracticable  by  the  snow, 
the  carriage  now  a  mere  wreck. 


1870-^1872  193 

The  town  was  full  of  soldiers,  some  crouching  round  fires  in 
the  street,  others  stepping  across  their  dead  horses  and  begging 
for  a.  little  straw  to  lie  on.  Many  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
church  and  were  lying  on  the  steps  of  the  altar ;  a  few  were 
attempting  to  bandage  their  frozen  feet,  threatened  with 
gangrene. 

Suddenly  the  news  spread  that  the  general-in-chief,  Bour- 
baki,  had  shot  himself  through  the  brain.  This  did  not  excite 
much  surprise.  He  had  telegraphed  two  days  before  to  the 
Minister  of  War  :  ' '  You  cannot  have  an  idea  of  the  sufferings 
that  the  army  has  endured  since  the  beginning  of  December. 
It  is  martyrdom  to  be  in  command  at  such  a  time,"  he  added 
despairingly. 

The  retreat  from  Moscow  cannot  have  been  worse  than 
this,"  said  Pasteur  to  a  staff  officer,  Commandant  Bourboulon, 
a  nephew  of  Sainte  Claire  Deville,  whom  he  met  in  the  midst 
of  those  horrors  and  who  could  give  him  no  information  as  to 
his  son's  battalion  of  Chasseurs.  "  All  that  I  can  tell  you," 
said  a  soldier  anxiously  questioned  by  Mme.  Pasteur,  "  is  that 
out  of  the  1,200  men  of  that  battalion  there  are  but  300  left." 
As  she  was  questioning  another,  a  soldier  who  was  passing 
stopped  :  "  Sergeant  Pasteur?  Yes,  he  is  alive  ;  I  slept  by  him 
last  night  at  Chaff ois.  He  has  remained  behind  ;  he  is  ill.  You 
might  meet  him  on  the  road  towards  Chaffois." 

The  Pasteurs  started  again  on  the  road  followed  the  day 
before.  They  had  barely  passed  the  Pontarlier  gate  when  a 
rough  cart  came  by.  A  soldier  muffled  in  his  great  coat,  his 
hands  resting  on  the  edge  of  the  cart,  started  with  surprise. 
He  hurried  down,  and  the  family  embraced  without  a  word,  so 
great  was  their  emotion. 

The  capitulation  of  starving  Paris  and  the  proposed  armistice 
are  historical  events  still  present  in  the  memory  of  men  who 
were  then  beginning  to  learn  the  meaning  of  defeat.  The 
armistice,  which  Jules  Favre  thought  would  be  applied  with- 
out restriction  to  all  the  army  corps,  was  interpreted  by  Bis- 
marck in  a  peculiar  way.  He  and  Jules  Favre  between  them 
had  drawn  up  a  protocol  in  general  terms ;  it  had  been  under- 
stood in  those  preliminary  confabulations  that,  before  drawing 
up  the  limits  of  the  neutral  zone  applicable  to  the  Eastern  Army 
Corps,  some  missing  information  would  be  awaited,  the  respec- 
tive positions  of  the  belligerents  being  unknown.  The  in- 
formation did  not  come,  and  Jules  Favre  in  his  imprudent 

0 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

trustfulness  supposed  that  the  deUmitation  would  be  done  on  the 
spot  by  the  officers  in  command.  When  he  heard  that  the 
Prussian  troops  were  continuing  their  march  eastwards ,  he  com- 
plained to  Bismarck,  who  answered  that  "  the  incident  cannot 
have  compromised  the  Eastern  Army  Corps,  as  it  already  was 
completely  routed  when  the  armistice  was  signed."  This  cal- 
culated reserve  on  Bismarck's  part  was  eminently  character- 
istic of  his  moral  physiognomy,  and  this  encounter  between  the 
two  Ministers  proved  once  again  the  inferiority — when  great 
interests  are  at  stake — of  emotional  men  to  hard-hearted  business 
men ;  however  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Bismarck's  state- 
ment was  founded  on  fact.  The  Eastern  Corps  could  have 
fought  no  more  ;  its  way  was  blocked.  Without  food,  without 
clothes,  in  many  cases  without  arms,  nothing  remained  to  the 
unfortunate  soldiers  but  the  refuge  offered  by  Switzerland. 

Pasteur  went  to  Geneva  with  his  son,  who,  after  recovering 
from  the  illness  caused  by  fatigue  and  privation,  succeeded  in 
getting  back  to  France  to  rejoin  his  regiment  in  the  early  days 
of  February.  Pasteur  then  went  on  to  Lyons  and  stayed  there 
with  his  brother-in-law,  M.  Loir,  Dean  of  the  Lyons  Faculty 
of  Science.  He  intended  to  go  back  to  Paris,  but  a  letter  from 
Bertin  dated  February  18  advised  him  to  wait.  "This  is  the 
present  state  of  the  Ecole  :  south  wing  :  pulled  down  ;  will  be 
built  up  again ;  workmen  expected.  Third  year  dormitory  : 
ambulance  occupied  by  eight  students.  Science  dormitory  and 
drawing  classroom  :  ambulance  again,  forty  patients.  Ground 
floor  classroom  :  120  artillery-men.  Pasteur  laboratory  :  210 
gardes  nationaux,  refugees  from  Issy.  You  had  better  wait." 
Bertin  added,  with  his  indomitable  good  humour,  speaking  of 
the  bombardment  :  "  The  first  day  I  did  not  go  out,  but  I  took 
my  bearings  and  found  the  formula  :  in  leaving  the  school,  walk 
close  along  the  houses  on  my  left ;  on  coming  back ,  keep  close 
to  them  on  my  right ;  with  that  I  went  out  as  usual.  The 
population  of  Paris  has  shown  magnificent  resignation  and 
patience.  ...  In  order  to  have  our  revenge,  everything  will 
have  to  be  rebuilt  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  the  top 
especially." 

Pasteur  also  thought  that  reforms  should  begin  from  the  top. 
He  prepared  a  paper  dated  from  Lyons,  and  entitled  "Why 
France  found  no  superior  men  in  the  hours  of  peril."  Amongst 
the  mistakes  committed,  one  in  particular  had  been  before  his 
mind  for  twenty  years,  ever  since  he  left  the  Ecole  Normale  : 


1870—1872  195 

"  The  forgetfulness,  disdain  even,  that  France  had  had  for 
great  intellectual  men,  especially  in  the  realm  of  exact  science." 
This  seemed  the  more  sad  to  him  that  things  had  been  very 
different  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Pasteur  enu- 
merated the  services  rendered  by  science  to  his  threatened 
country.  If  in  1792  France  was  able  to  face  danger  on  all 
sides,  it  was  because  Lavoisier,  Fourcroy,  Guy  ton  de  Morveau, 
Chaptal,  Berthollet,  etc.,  discovered  new  means  of  extracting 
saltpetre  and  manufacturing  gunpowder  ;  because  Monge  found 
a  method  of  founding  cannon  with  great  rapidity ;  and  because 
the  chemist  Clouet  invented  a  quick  system  of  manufacturing 
steel.  Science,  in  the  service  of  patriotism,  made  a  victorious 
army  of  a  perturbed  nation.  If  Marat,  with  his  slanderous 
and  injurious  insinuations,  had  not  turned  from  their  course  the 
feelings  of  the  mob ,  Lavoisier  never  would  have  perished  on  the 
scaffold.  The  day  after  his  execution,  Lagrange  said  :  "One 
moment  was  enough  for  his  head  to  fall,  and  200  years  may 
not  suffice  to  produce  such  another."  Monge  and  Berthollet, 
also  denounced  by  Marat,  nearly  shared  the  same  fate  :  "In 
a  week's  time  we  shall  be  arrested,  tried,  condemned  and 
executed,"  said  Berthollet  placidly  to  Monge,  who  answered 
with  equal  composure,  thinking  only  of  the  country's  defence, 
"  All  I  know  is  that  my  gun  factories  are  working  admirably." 

Bonaparte,  from  the  first,  made  of  science  what  he  would 
have  made  of  everything — a  means  of  reigning.  When  he 
started  for  Egypt,  he  desired  to  have  with  him  a  staff  of 
scientists,  and  Monge  and  Berthollet  undertook  to  organize 
that  distinguished  company.  Later,  when  Bonaparte  became 
Napoleon  I,  he  showed,  in  the  intervals  between  his  wars,  so 
much  respect  for  the  place  due  to  science  as  to  proclaim  the 
effacement  of  national  rivalry  when  scientific  discoveries  were 
in  question.  Pasteur,  when  studying  this  side  of  the  Imperial 
character,  found  in  some  pages  by  Arago  on  Monge  that,  after 
Waterloo,  Napoleon,  in  a  conversation  he  had  with  Monge  at 
the  Ely  see,  said,  "Condemned  now  to  command  armies  no 
longer,  I  can  see  but  Science  with  which  to  occupy  my  mind 
and  my  soul  ..." 

Alluding  to  the  scientific  supremacy  of  France  during  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Pasteur  wrote:  "All 
the  other  nations  acknowledged  our  superiority,  though  each 
could  take  pride  in  some  great  men  :  Berzelius  in  Sweden, 
Davy  in  England,  Volta  in  Italy,  other  eminent  men  in  Ger- 

o  2 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

many  and  Switzerland ;  but  in  no  country  were  they  as  numer- 
ous as  in  France  ..."  He  added  these  regretful  lines  :  "  A 
victim  of  her  political  instability,  France  has  done  nothing  to 
keep  up,  to  propagate  and  to  develop  the  progress  of  science 
in  our  country  ;  she  has  merely  obeyed  a  given  impulse  ;  she  has 
lived  on  her  past,  thinking  herself  great  by  the  scientific  dis- 
coveries to  which  she  owed  her  material  prosperity ,  but  not  per- 
ceiving that  she  was  imprudently  allowing  the  sources  of  those 
discoveries  to  become  dry,  whilst  neighbouring  nations,  stimu- 
lated by  her  past  example,  were  diverting  for  their  own  benefit 
the  course  of  those  springs,  rendering  them  fruitful  by  their 
works,  their  efforts  and  their  sacrifices. 

"Whilst  Germany  was  multiplying  her  universities,  estab- 
lishing between  them  the  most  salutary  emulation,  bestowing 
honours  and  consideration  on  the  masters  and  doctors,  creating 
vast  laboratories  amply  supplied  with  the  most  perfect  instru- 
ments, France,  enervated  by  revolutions,  ever  vainly  seeking 
for  the  best  form  of  government,  was  giving  but  careless  atten- 
tion to  her  establishments  for  higher  education  .   .   . 

' '  The  cultivation  of  science  in  its  highest  expression  is 
perhaps  even  more  necessary  to  the  moral  condition  than  to  the 
material  prosperity  of  a  nation. 

"  Great  discoveries — the  manifestations  of  thought  in  Art, 
in  Science  and  in  Letters,  in  a  word  the  disinterested  exercise 
of  the  mind  in  every  direction  and  the  centres  of  instruction 
from  which  it  radiates,  introduce  into  the  whole  of  Society  that 
philosophical  or  scientific  spirit,  that  spirit  of  discernment, 
which  submits  everything  to  severe  reasoning,  condemns 
ignorance  and  scatters  errors  and  prejudices.  They  raise  the 
intellectual  level  and  the  moral  sense,  and  through  them  the 
Divine  idea  itself  is  spread  abroad  and  intensified." 

At  the  very  time  when  Pasteur  was  preoccupied  with  the 
desire  of  directing  the  public  mind  towards  the  principles  of 
truth,  justice  and  sovereign  harmony,  Sainte  Claire  Deville, 
speaking  of  the  Academy,  expressed  similar  ideas,  proclaim- 
ing that  France  had  been  vanquished  by  science  and  that  it  was 
now  time  to  free  scientific  bodies  from  the  tyranny  of  red  tape. 
Why  should  not  the  Academy  become  the  centre  of  all  measures 
relating  to  science,  independently  of  government  offices  or 
officials? 

J.  B.  Dumas  took  part  in  the  discussion  opened  by  Sainte 
Claire  Deville,  and  agreed  with  his  suggestions.     He  might 


1870—1872  197 

have  said  more,  however,  on  a  subject  which  he  often  took 
up  in  private  :  the  utihty  of  pure  science  in  daily  experience. 
With  his  own  special  gift  of  generalization,  he  could  have  ex- 
pounded the  progress  of  all  kinds  due  to  the  workers  who,  by 
their  perseverance  in  resolving  difficult  problems,  have  brought 
about  so  many  precious  and  unexpected  results.  Few  men  in 
France  realized  at  that  time  that  laboratories  could  be  the 
vestibule  of  farms,  factories,  etc.  ;  it  was  indeed  a  noble  task, 
that  of  proving  that  science  was  intended  to  lighten  the  burden 
of  humanity,  not  merely  to  be  applied  to  devastation,  carnage, 
and  hatred. 

Pasteur  was  in  the  midst  of  these  philosophical  reflections 
when  he  received  the  following  answer  from  the  principal  of 
the  Faculty  of  Medicine  of  Bonn  : 

"Sir,  the  undersigned,  now  Principal  of  the  Faculty  of 
Medicine  of  Bonn,  is  requested  to  answer  the  insult  which  you 
have  dared  to  offer  to  the  German  nation  in  the  sacred  person 
of  its  august  Emperor,  King  Wilhelm  of  Prussia,  by  sending 
you  the  expression  of  its  entire  contempt." — Dr.  Maurice 
Naumann. 

"P.S. — Desiring  to  keep  its  papers  free  from  taint,  the 
Faculty  herewith  returns  your  screed." 

Pasteur's  reply  contained  the  following  :  "  I  have  the  honour 
of  informing  you,  Mr.  Principal,  that  there  are  times  when 
the  expression  of  contempt  in  a  Prussian  mouth  is  equivalent 
for  a  true  Frenchman  to  that  of  Virum  clarissimum  which  you 
once  publicly  conferred  upon  me." 

After  invoking  in  favour  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  Truth,  of 
Justice,  and  the  laws  of  humanity,  Pasteur  added  in  a  post- 
script— 

"And  now,  Mr,  Principal,  after  reading  over  both  your 
letter  and  mine,  I  sorrow^  in  my  heart  to  think  that  men  who 
like  yourself  and  myself  have  spent  a  lifetime  in  the  pursuit  of 
truth  and  progress,  should  address  each  other  in  such  a  fashion, 
founded  on  my  part  on  such  actions.  This  is  but  one  of  the 
results  of  the  character  your  Emperor  has  given  to  this  war. 
You  speak  to  me  of  taint.  Mr.  Principal,  taint  will  rest,  you 
may  be  assured,  until  far-distant  ages,  on  the  memory  of  those 
who  began  the  bombardment  of  Paris  when  capitulation  by 
famine  was  inevitable,  and  who  continued  this  act  of  savagery 
after  it  had  become  evident  to  all  men  that  it  would  not  advance 
by  one  hour  the  surrender  of  the  heroic  city." 


198  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Whilst  Pasteur  thus  felt  those  simple  and  strong  impressions 
as  a  soldier  or  the  man  in  the  street  might  do,  the  creative 
power  of  his  nature  was  urging  him  to  great  and  useful  achieve- 
ments.    He  wrote  from  Lyons  in  March  to  M.  Duclaux — 

"My  head  is  full  of  splendid  projects;  the  war  sent  my 
brain  to  grass,  but  I  now  feel  ready  for  further  work.  Per- 
haps I  am  deluding  myself ;  anyhow  I  will  try.  .  .  .  Oh  !  why 
am  I  not  rich,  a  millionaire?  I  would  say  to  you,  to  Eaulin, 
to  Gernez,  to  Van  Tieghem,  etc.,  come,  we  will  transform  the 
world  by  our  discoveries.  How  fortunate  you  are  to  be  young 
and  strong !  Why  can  I  not  begin  a  new  life  of  study  and 
work!  Unhappy  France,  beloved  country,  if  I  could  only 
assist  in  raising  thee  from  thy  disasters  !  " 

A  few  days  later,  in  a  letter  to  Eaulin,  this  desire  for  devoted 
work  was  again  expressed  almost  feverishly.  He  could  fore- 
see, in  the  dim  distance,  secret  affinities  between  apparently 
dissimilar  things.  He  had  at  that  time  returned  to  the  re- 
searches which  had  absorbed  his  youth  (because  those  studies 
were  less  materially  difficult  to  organize) ,  and  he  could  perceive 
laws  and  connections  between  the  facts  he  had  observed  and 
those  of  the  existence  of  which  he  felt  assured. 

' '  I  have  begun  here  some  experiments  in  crystallization 
which  will  open  a  great  prospect  if  they  should  lead  to  positive 
results.  You  know  that  I  believe  that  there  is  a  cosmic  dis- 
symmetric influence  which  presides  constantly  and  naturally 
over  the  molecular  organization  of  principles  immediately  essen- 
tial to  life ;  and  that,  in  consequence  of  this,  the  species  of  the 
three  kingdoms,  by  their  structure,  by  their  form,  by  the  dis- 
position of  their  tissues,  have  a  definite  relation  to  the  move- 
ments of  the  universe.  For  many  of  those  species,  if  not  for 
all,  the  sun  is  the  primmn  movens  of  nutrition  ;  but  I  believe  in 
another  influence  which  would  affect  the  whole  organization, 
for  it  would  be  the  cause  of  the  molecular  dissymmetry  proper 
to  the  chemical  components  of  life.  I  want  to  be  able  by  ex- 
periment to  grasp  a  few  indications  as  to  the  nature  of  this 
great  cosmic  dissymmetrical  influence.  It  must,  it  may  be 
electricity,  magnetism.  .  .  .  And,  as  one  should  always  proceed 
from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  I  am  now  trying  to  crystallize 
double  racemate  of  soda  and  ammonia  under  the  influence  of  a 
spiral  solenoid. 

"  I  have  various  other  forms  of  experiment  to  attempt.  If 
one  of  them  should  succeed,  we  shall  have  work  for  the  rest  of 


1870—1872  199 

our  lives,  and  in  one  of  the  greatest  subjects  man  could  ap- 
proach, for  I  should  not  despair  of  arriving  by  this  means  at  a 
very  deep,  unexpected  and  extraordinary  modification  of  the 
animal  and  vegetable  species. 

"  Good-bye,  my  dear  Eaulin.  Let  us  endeavour  to  distract 
our  thoughts  from  human  turpitudes  by  the  disinterested  search 
after  truth." 

In  a  little  notebook  where  he  jotted  down  some  intended  ex- 
periments we  find  evidence  of  those  glimpses  of  divination  in  a 
few  summary  lines  :  ' '  Show  that  life  is  in  the  germ ,  that  it  has 
been  but  in  a  state  of  transmission  since  the  origin  of  creation. 
That  the  germ  possesses  possibilities  of  development,  either  of 
intelligence  and  will,  or — and  in  the  same  way — of  physical 
organs.  Compare  these  possibilities  with  those  possessed  by 
the  germ  of  chemical  species  which  is  in  the  chemical  molecule. 
The  possibilities  of  development  in  the  germ  of  the  chemical 
molecule  consist  in  crystallization,  in  its  form,  in  its  physical 
and  chemical  properties.  Those  properties  are  in  power  in  the 
germ  of  the  molecule  in  the  same  way  as  the  organs  and  tissues 
of  animals  and  plants  are  in  their  respective  germs.  Add  : 
nothing  is  more  curious  than  to  carry  the  comparison  of  living 
species  with  mineral  species  into  the  study  of  the  wounds  of 
either,  and  of  their  healing  by  means  of  nutrition — a  nutrition 
coming  from  within  in  living  beings,  and  from  without  through 
the  medium  of  crystallization  in  the  others.  Here  detail 
facts.  .  .  ." 

In  that  same  notebook,  Pasteur,  after  writing  down  the  fol- 
lowing heading ,  ' '  Letter  to  prepare  on  the  species  in  connection 
with  molecular  dissymmetry,"  added,  "  I  could  write  that  letter 
to  Bernard.  I  should  say  that  being  deprived  of  a  laboratory 
by  the  present  state  of  France,  I  am  going  to  give  him  the  pre- 
conceived ideas  that  I  shall  try  to  experiment  upon  when  better 
times  come.  There  is  no  peril  in  expressing  ideas  a  priori, 
when  they  are  taken  as  such,  and  can  be  gradually  modified, 
perhaps  even  completely  transformed,  according  to  the  result 
of  the  observation  of  facts." 

He  once  compared  those  preconceived  ideas  with  searchlights 
guiding  the  experimentalist,  saying  that  they  only  became 
dangerous  when  they  became  fixed  ideas. 

Civil  war  had  now  come,  showing,  as  Eenan  said,  "a  sore 
under  the  sore,  an  abyss  below  the  abyss."  What  were  the 
hopes  and  projects  of  Pasteur  and  of  Sainte  Claire  Deville  now 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

that  the  very  existence  of  the  divided  country  was  jeopardized 
under  the  eyes  of  the  Prussians?  The  world  of  letters  and  of 
science,  helpless  amidst  such  disorders,  had  dispersed;  Saint 
Claire  Deville  was  at  Gex,  Dumas  at  Geneva.  Some  were 
wondering  whether  lectures  could  not  be  organized  in  Switzer- 
land and  in  Belgium  as  they  had  been  under  the  Empire,  thus 
spreading  abroad  the  influence  of  French  thought.  Examples 
might  be  quoted  of  men  who  had  served  the  glory  of  their 
country  in  other  lands,  such  as  Descartes,  who  took  refuge  in 
Holland  in  order  to  continue  his  philosophic  meditations. 
Pasteur  might  have  been  tempted  to  do  likewise.  Already, 
before  the  end  of  the  war,  an  Italian  professor  of  chemistry, 
Signor  Chiozza,  who  had  applied  Pasteur's  methods  to  silk- 
worms in  the  neighbourhood  of  Villa  Vicentina,  got  the  Italian 
Government  to  offer  him  a  laboratory  and  the  direction  of  a 
silkworm  establishment.  Pasteur  refused,  and  a  deputy  of 
Pisa,  Signor  Toscanelli,  hearing  of  this,  obtained  for  Pasteur 
the  offer  of  what  was  better  still — a  professor's  chair  of 
Chemistry  applied  to  Agriculture  at  Pisa ;  this  would  give 
every  facility  for  work  and  all  laboratory  resources.  "Pisa," 
Signor  Chiozza  said,  "  is  a  quiet  town,  a  sort  of  Latin  quarter 
in  the  middle  of  the  country,  where  professors  and  students 
form  the  greater  part  of  the  population.  I  think  you  would  be 
received  with  the  greatest  cordiality  and  quite  exceptional  con- 
sideration ...  I  fear  that  black  days  of  prolonged  agitation 
are  in  store  for  France." 

Pasteur's  health  and  work  were  indeed  valuable  to  the  whole 
world,  and  Signor  Chiozza's  proposition  seemed  simple  and 
rational.  Pasteur  was  much  divided  in  his  mind  :  his  first 
impulse  was  to  renew  his  refusal.  He  thought  but  of  his  van- 
quished country,  and  did  not  wish  to  forsake  it.  But  was  it  to 
his  country's  real  interests  that  he  should  remain  a  helpless 
spectator  of  so  many  disasters?  Was  it  not  better  to  carry 
French  teaching  abroad,  to  try  and  provoke  in  young  Italian 
students  enthusiasm  for  French  scientists,  French  achieve- 
ments? He  might  still  serve  his  beloved  country  in  that  quiet 
retreat,  amidst  all  those  facilities  for  continuous  work.  He 
thought  of  writing  to  Eaulin,  who  had  relations  in  Italy,  and 
who  might  follow  his  master.  Finally,  he  was  offered  very 
great  personal  advantages,  a  high  salary— and  this  determined 
his  refusal,  for,  as  he  wrote  to  Signor  Chiozza,  "I  should  feel 
that  I  deserved  a  deserter's  penalty  if  I  sought,  away  from  my 


1870—1872  201 

country  in  distress,  a  material  situation  better  than  it  can 
offer  me." 

"  Nevertheless  allow  me  to  tell  you,  Sir  (he  wrote  to  Signor 
Toscanelli,  refusing  his  offer),  in  all  sincerity,  that  the  memory 
of  your  offer  will  remain  in  the  annals  of  my  family  as  a  title 
of  nobility,  as  a  proof  of  Italy's  sympathy  for  France,  as  a 
token  of  the  esteem  accorded  to  my  work.  And  as  far  as  you, 
M.  le  Depute,  are  concerned  it  will  remain  in  my  eyes  a 
briUiant  proof  of  the  way  in  which  public  men  in  Italy  regard 
science  and  its  grandeur." 

And  now  what  was  Pasteur  to  do — he  who  could  not  live 
away  from  a  laboratory?  In  April,  1871,  he  could  neither  go 
back  to  Paris  and  the  Commune  nor  to  Arbois,  now  trans- 
formed into  a  Prussian  depot.  It  seemed,  indeed,  from  the 
letters  he  received  that  his  fellow  citizens  were  now  destined 
but  to  feed  and  serve  a  victorious  foe,  whose  exactions  were  all 
the  more  rigorous  that  the  invasion  of  the  town  on  January  25 
had  been  preceded  by  an  attempt  at  resistance  on  the  part  of  the 
inhabitants.  On  that  morning,  a  few  French  soldiers  who  were 
seeking  their  regiments  and  a  handful  of  franc  tireurs  had 
posted  themselves  among  the  vines.  About  ten  o'clock  a  first 
shot  sounded  in  the  distance  ;  in  a  turn  of  the  sinuous  Besan9on 
road,  when  the  Prussian  vanguard  had  appeared,  a  Zouave — 
who  the  day  before  was  begging  from  door  to  door,  shaking  with 
ague,  and  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  village  of  Montigny, 
two  kilometres  from  Arbois — had  in  despair  fired  his  last 
cartridge.  A  squad  of  Prussians  left  the  road  and  rushed  to- 
wards the  smoke  of  the  gun.  The  soldier  was  seized,  shot 
down  on  the  spot,  and  mutilated  with  bayonets.  Whilst  the 
main  column  continued  their  advance  towards  the  town,  de- 
tachments explored  the  vines  on  either  side  of  the  road,  shoot- 
ing here  and  there.  An  old  man  who,  with  a  courageous 
indifference,  was  working  in  his  vineyard  was  shot  down  at  his 
work.  A  little  pastrycook's  boy,  nicknamed  Biscuit  by  the 
Arboisians,  who,  led  by  curiosity,  had  come  down  from  the 
upper  town  to  the  big  poplar  trees  at  the  entrance  of  Arbois, 
suddenly  staggered,  struck  by  a  Prussian  bullet.  He  was  just 
able  to  creep  back  to  the  first  house,  his  eyes  already  dimmed  by 
death. 

Those  were  but  the  chances  of  war,  but  other  crueller 
episodes  thrilled  Pasteur  to  the  very  depths  of  his  soul.  Such 
things  are  lost  in  history,  just  as  a  little  blood  spilt  disappears 


202  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

in  a  river,  but,  for  the  witnesses  and  contemporaries  of  the 
facts,  the  trace  of  blood  remains.  An  incident  will  help  the 
reader  to  understand  the  lasting  indignation  the  war  excited 
in  Pasteur. 

One  of  the  Prussian  sergeants,  who,  after  the  shot  fired  at 
Montigny,  were  leading  small  detachments  of  soldiers,  thought 
that  a  house  on  the  outskirts  of  Arbois,  in  the  faubourg  of 
Verreux,  looked  as  if  it  might  shelter  franc  tireurs.  He 
directed  his  men  towards  it  and  the  house  was  soon  reached. 

It  was  now  twelve  o'clock,  all  fighting  had  ceased,  and  the 
first  Prussians  who  had  arrived  were  masters  of  the  town. 
Others  were  arriving  from  various  directions ;  a  heavy  silence 
reigned  over  the  town.  The  mayor,  M.  Lefort,  led  by  a 
Prussian  officer  who  covered  him  with  a  revolver  whenever  he 
addressed  him,  was  treated  as  a  hostage  responsible  for  abso- 
lute submission.  Every  door  in  the  small  Town  Hall  was  opened 
in  succession  in  order  to  see  that  there  were  no  arms  hidden. 
The  mayor  was  each  time  made  to  pass  first,  so  that  he  should 
receive  the  shot  in  case  of  a  surprise.  In  the  library,  three 
flags,  which  General  Delort  had  brought  back  from  the  Ehine 
campaign  when  he  was  a  captain  in  the  cavalry  and  given  to 
his  native  town,  were  torn  down  and  the  general's  bust  over- 
turned. 

The  sergeant,  violently  entering  the  suspected  house  w^ith 
his  men,  found  a  whole  family  peacefully  sitting  down  to  their 
dinner — the  husband,  wife,  a  son  of  nineteen,  and  two  young 
daughters.  The  invaders  made  no  search  nor  asked  any  ques- 
tions of  those  poor  people,  who  had  probably  done  nothing  w^orse 
than  to  offer  a  few  glasses  of  wine  to  French  soldiers  as  they 
passed.  The  sergeant  did  not  even  ask  the  name  of  the  master 
of  the  house  (Antoine  Ducret,  aged  fifty-nine),  but  seized  him 
by  his  coat  and  ordered  his  men  to  seize  the  son  too.  The 
woman ,  who  rushed  to  the  door  in  her  endeavour  to  prevent  her 
husband  and  her  son  from  being  thus  taken  from  her,  was 
violently  flung  to  the  end  of  the  room,  her  trembling  daughters 
crouching  around  her  as  they  listened  to  the  heavy  Prussian 
boots  going  down  the  wooden  stairs.  There  is  a  public  drinking 
fountain  not  far  from  the  house ;  Ducret  was  taken  there  and 
placed  against  a  wall.  He  understood,  and  cried  out,  "  Spare 
my  son  !  !  "  "  What  do  you  say  ?  ' '  said  the  sergeant  to  the 
boy.  "I  will  stay  with  my  father,"  he  answered  simply.  The 
father,  struck  by  two  bullets  at  close  range,  fell  at  the  feet  of 


1870—1872  203 

his  son,  who  was  shot  down  immediately  afterwards.  The  two 
corpses,  afterwards  mutilated  with  bayonets,  remained  lying 
by  the  water  side ;  the  neighbours  succeeded  in  preventing  the 
mother  and  her  two  daughters  from  leaving  their  house  until 
the  bodies  had  been  placed  in  a  coffin.  On  the  tombs  of  Antoine 
and  Charles  Ducret  the  equivocal  inscription  was  placed  ' '  Fell 
at  Arbois,  January  25,  1871,  under  Prussian  fire."  For  the 
honour  of  humanity,  a  German  officer,  having  heard  these  de- 
tails, offered  the  life  of  the  sergeant  to  Ducret's  widow;  but 
she  entertained  no  thoughts  of  revenge.  "His  death  would 
not  give  them  back  tome,"  she  said. 

Pasteur  could  not  become  resigned  to  the  humiliation  of 
France,  and,  tearing  his  thoughts  from  the  nightmare  of  the 
war  and  the  Commune,  he  dwelt  continually  on  the  efforts 
that  would  be  necessary  to  carry  out  the  great  task  of  raising 
the  country  once  again  to  its  proper  rank.  In  his  mind  it  was 
the  duty  of  every  one  to  say,  "  In  what  way  can  I  be  useful?  " 
Each  man  should  strive  not  so  much  to  play  a  great  part  as  to 
give  the  best  of  his  ability.  He  had  no  patience  with  those 
who  doubt  everything  in  order  to  have  an  excuse  for  doing 
nothing. 

He  had  indeed  known  dark  moments  of  doubt  and  mis- 
givings, as  even  the  greatest  minds  must  do,  but  notwith- 
standing these  periods  of  discouragement  he  was  convinced  that 
science  and  peace  will  ultimately  triumph  over  ignorance  and 
war.  In  spite  of  recent  events,  the  bitter  conditions  of  peace 
which  tore  unwilling  Alsace  and  part  of  Lorraine  away  from 
France,  the  heavy  tax  of  gold  and  of  blood  weighing  down  future 
generations,  the  sad  visions  of  young  men  in  their  prime  cut 
down  on  the  battlefield  or  breathing  their  last  in  hospitals  all  to 
no  apparent  purpose ;  in  spite  of  all  these  sad  memories  he  was 
persuaded  that  thinkers  would  gradually  awaken  in  the  nations 
ideas  of  justice  and  of  concord. 

He  had  now  for  nine  years  been  following  with  a  passionate 
interest  some  work  begun  in  his  own  laboratory  by  Eaulin,  his 
first  curator.  Some  of  the  letters  he  wrote  to  Eaulin  during 
those  nine  years  give  us  a  faint  idea  of  the  master  that  Pasteur 
was.  It  had  been  with  great  regret  that  Eaulin  had  left  the 
laboratory  in  obedience  to  the  then  laws  of  the  University  in 
order  to  take  up  active  work  at  the  Brest  college,  and  Pasteur's 
letters  (December,  1862)  brought  him  joy  and  encouragement  : 
"Keep  up  your  courage,  do  not  allow  the  idleness  of  pro- 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

vincial  life  to  disturb  you.  Teach  your  pupils  to  the  very  best 
of  your  abihty  and  give  up  your  leisure  to  experiments ;  this 
was  M.  Biot's  advice  to  myself."  When  in  July,  1863,  he 
began  to  fear  that  Eaulin  might  allow  imagination  to  lead  him 
astray  in  his  work,  he  repeatedly  advised  him  to  state 
nothing  that  could  not  be  proved :  "Be  very  strict  in 
your  deductions";  then,  apparently,  loth  to  damp  the  young 
man's  ardour  :  "I  have  the  greatest  confidence  in  your  judg- 
ment; do  not  take  too  much  heed  of  my  observations." 

In  1863  Pasteur  asked  Eaulin  to  come  with  him,  Gernez  and 
Duclaux,  to  Arbois  for  some  studies  on  wines,  etc.,  but  Eaulin, 
absorbed  in  the  investigations  he  had  undertaken ,  refused  ;  in 
1865  he  refused  to  come  to  Alais,  still  being  completely  wrapt 
up  in  the  same  work.  Pasteur  sympathized  heartily  with  his 
pupil's  perseverance,  and,  when  Eaulin  was  at  last  able  to 
announce  to  his  master  the  results  so  long  sought  after,  Pasteur 
hurried  to  Caen,  where  Eaulin  was  now  professor  of  Physics, 
and  returned  full  of  enthusiasm.  His  modesty  in  all  that  con- 
cerned himself  now  giving  way  to  delighted  pride,  he  spoke  of 
Eauhn's  discoveries  to  every  one.  Yet  they  concerned  an 
apparently  unimportant  subject — a  microscopical  fungus,  a 
simple  mucor,  whose  spores,  mingled  with  atmospheric  germs, 
develop  on  bread  moistened  with  vinegar  or  on  a  slice  of  lemon  ; 
yet  no  precious  plant  ever  inspired  more  care  or  solicitude  than 
that  aspergillus  niger,  as  it  is  called.  Eaulin,  inspired  by 
Pasteur's  studies  on  cultures  in  an  artificial  medium,  that  is,  a 
medium  exclusively  composed  of  defined  chemical  substances, 
resolved  to  find  for  this  plant  a  typical  medium  capable  of  giving 
its  maximum  development  to  the  aspergillus  niger.  Some  of 
his  comrades  looked  upon  this  as  upon  a  sort  of  laboratory 
amusement ;  but  Eaulin,  ever  a  man  of  one  idea,  looked  upon 
the  culture  of  microscopic  vegetation  as  a  step  towards  a  greater 
knowledge  of  vegetable  physiology,  leading  to  the  development 
of  artificial  manure  production,  and  from  that  to  the  rational 
nutrition  of  the  human  organisms.  He  started  from  the  condi- 
tions indicated  by  Pasteur  for  the  development  of  mucedinae  in 
general  and  in  particular  for  a  mucor  which  has  some  points  of 
resemblance  with  the  aspergillus  niger,  the  penicillium  glau- 
cum,  which  spreads  a  bluish  tint  over  mouldy  bread,  jam,  and 
soft  cheeses.  Eaulin  began  by  placing  pure  spores  of  asper- 
gillus niger  on  the  surface  of  a  saucer  containing  everything 


1870—1872  205 

that  seemed  necessary  to  their  perfect  growth,  in  a  stove  heated 
to  a  temperature  of  20°  C;  but  in  spite  of  every  care,  after 
forty  days  had  passed,  the  tiny  fungus  was  languishing  and 
unhealthy.  A  temperature  of  30°  did  not  seem  more  successful ; 
and  when  the  stove  was  heated  to  above  38°  the  result  was  the 
same.  At  35°,  with  a  moist  and  changing  atmosphere,  the  re- 
sult was  favourable — very  fortunately  for  Eaulin,  for  the 
principal  of  the  college,  an  economically  minded  man,  did  not 
approve  of  burning  so  much  gas  for  such  a  tiny  fungus  and  with 
such  poor  results.  This  want  of  sympathy  excited  Eaulin 's 
solemn  wrath  and  caused  him  to  meditate  dark  projects  of 
revenge,  such  as  ignoring  his  enemy  in  the  street  on  some  future 
occasion.  In  the  meanwhile  he  continued  his  slow  and  careful 
experiments.  He  succeeded  at  last  in  composing  a  liquid,  tech- 
nically called  Eaulin 's  liquid,  in  which  the  aspergillus  niger 
grew  and  flourished  within  six  or  even  three  days.  Eleven  sub- 
stances were  necessary  :  water,  candied  sugar,  tartaric  acid, 
nitrate  of  ammonia,  phosphate  of  ammonia,  carbonate  of 
potash,  carbonate  of  magnesia,  sulphate  of  ammonia,  sulphate 
of  zinc,  sulphate  of  iron,  and  silicate  of  potash.  He  now 
studied  the  part  played  by  each  of  those  elements,  varying  his 
quantities,  taking  away  one  substance  and  adding  another,  and 
obtained  some  very  curious  results.  For  instance,  the  asper- 
gillus was  extraordinarily  sensitive  to  the  action  of  zinc ;  if 
the  quantity  of  zinc  was  reduced  by  a  few  milligrams  the  vegeta- 
tion decreased  by  one-tenth.  Other  elements  were  pernicious  ; 
if  Eaulin  added  to  his  liquid  t6ooooo  of  nitrate  of  silver,  the 
growth  of  the  fungus  ceased.  Moreover,  if  he  placed  the  liquid 
in  a  silver  goblet  instead  of  a  china  saucer,  the  vegetation  did 
not  even  begin,  "  though,"  writes  M.  Duclaux,  analysing  this 
fine  work  of  his  fellow  student,  "it  is  almost  impossible  to 
chemically  detect  any  dissolution  of  the  silver  into  the  liquid. 
But  the  fungus  proves  it  by  dying." 

In  this  thesis,  now  a  classic,  which  only  appeared  in  1870, 
Eaulin  enumerated  with  joyful  gratitude  all  that  he  owed  to  his 
illustrious  master — general  views,  principles  and  methods,  sug- 
gestive ideas,  advice  and  encouragement — saying  that  Pasteur 
had  shown  him  the  road  on  which  he  had  travelled  so  far. 
Pasteur,  touched  by  his  pupil's  affection,  wrote  to  thank  him, 
saying  :  ' '  You  credit  me  with  too  much ;  it  is  enough  for  me 
that  your  work  should  be  known  as  having  been  begun  in  my 


206  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

laboratory,  and  in  a  direction  the  fruitfulness  of  which  I  was 
perhaps  the  first  to  point  out.  I  had  only  conceived  hopes,  and 
you  bring  us  solid  realities." 

In  April,  1871,  Pasteur,  preoccupied  with  the  future,  and 
ambitious  for  those  who  might  come  after  him,  wrote  to  Claude 
Bernard  :  ' '  Allow  me  to  submit  to  you  an  idea  which  has 
occurred  to  me,  that  of  conferring  on  my  dear  pupil  and  friend 
Eaulin  the  Experimental  Physiology  prize,  for  his  splendid 
work  on  the  nutriment  of  mucors,  or  rather  of  a  mucor,  the  ex- 
cellence of  which  work  has  not  escaped  you.  I  doubt  if  you  can 
find  anything  better.  I  must  tell  you  that  this  idea  occurred 
to  me  whilst  reading  your  admirable  report  on  the  progress  of 
General  Physiology  in  France.  If  therefore  my  suggestion 
seems  to  you  acceptable,  you  will  have  sown  the  germ  of  it  in 
my  mind ;  if  you  disapprove  of  it  I  shall  make  you  partly 
responsible." 

Claude  Bernard  hastened  to  reply  :  "  You  may  depend  upon 
my  support  for  your  pupil  M.  Eaulin.  It  will  be  for  me  both 
a  pleasure  and  a  duty  to  support  such  excellent  work  and  to 
glorify  the  method  of  the  master  who  inspired  it." 

In  his  letter  to  Claude  Bernard,  Pasteur  had  added  these 
words  :  "I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  go  and  spend  a  few 
months  at  Koyat  with  my  family,  so  as  to  be  near  my  dear 
Duclaux.     We  shall  raise  a  few  grammes  of  silkworm  seed. ' ' 

M.  Duclaux  was  then  professor  of  chemistry  at  the  Faculty 
of  Clermont  Ferrand,  a  short  distance  from  Eoyat,  and  Pasteur 
intended  to  walk  every  day  to  the  laboratory  of  his  former  pupil. 
But  M.  Duclaux  did  not  countenance  this  plan  ;  he  meant  to 
entertain  his  master  and  his  master's  family  in  his  own  house, 
25,  Bue  Montiosier,  where  he  could  even  have  one  room 
arranged  as  a  silkworm  nursery.  He  succeeded  in  persuading 
Pasteur,  and  they  organized  a  delightful  home  life  which  re- 
called the  days  at  Pont  Gisquet  before  the  war. 

Pasteur  was  seeking  the  means  of  making  his  seed-selecting 
process  applicable  to  small  private  nurseries  as  well  as  to  large 
industrial  establishments.  The  only  difficulty  was  the  cost  of 
the  indispensable  microscope ;  but  Pasteur  thought  that  each 
village  might  possess  its  microscope,  and  that  the  village  school- 
master might  be  entrusted  with  the  examination  of  the  moths. 

In  a  letter  written  in  April,  1871,  to  M.  Bellotti,  of  the 
Milan  Civic  Museum,  Pasteur,  after  describing  in  a  few  lines 
the  simple  process  he  had  taken  five  years  to  study,  added — 


1870—1872  207 

"  If  I  dared  to  quote  myself,  I  would  recall  those  words  from 
my  book — 

"  '  If  I  were  a  silkworm  cultivator  I  never  would  raise  seed 
from  worms  I  had  not  observed  during  the  last  days  of  their  life, 
so  as  to  satisfy  myself  as  to  their  vigour  and  agility  just  before 
spinning.  The  seed  chosen  should  be  that  which  comes  from 
worms  who  climbed  the  twigs  with  agility,  who  showed  no 
mortality  from  flachery  between  the  fourth  moulting  and  climb- 
ing time,  and  whose  freedom  from  corpuscles  will  have  been 
demonstrated  by  the  microscope.  If  that  is  done,  any  one  with 
the  slightest  knowledge  of  silkworm  culture  will  succeed  in 
every  case.'  " 

Italy  and  Austria  vied  with  each  other  in  adopting  the  seed 
selected  by  the  Pasteur  system.  But  it  was  only  when  Pasteur 
was  on  the  eve  of  receiving  from  the  Austrian  Government  the 
great  prize  offered  in  1868  to  ' '  whoever  should  discover  a  pre- 
ventive and  curative  remedy  against  pebrine  "  that  French 
sericicultors  began  to  be  convinced.  The  French  character 
offers  this  strange  contrast,  that  France  is  often  willing  to  risk 
her  fortune  and  her  blood  for  causes  which  may  be  unworthy, 
whilst  at  another  moment,  in  everyday  life,  she  shrinks  at  the 
least  innovation  before  accepting  a  benefit  originated  on  her 
own  soil.  The  French  often  wait  until  other  nations  have 
adopted  and  approved  a  French  discovery  before  venturing  to 
adopt  it  in  their  turn. 

Pasteur  did  not  stop  to  look  back  and  delight  in  his  success, 
but  hastened  to  turn  his  mind  to  another  kind  of  study.  His 
choice  of  a  subject  was  influenced  by  patriotic  motives. 
Grermany  was  incontestably  superior  to  France  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  beer,  and  he  conceived  the  thought  of  making  France  a 
successful  rival  in  that  respect ;  in  order  to  enable  himself  to 
do  so,  he  undertook  to  study  the  scientific  mechanism  of  beer 
manufacture. 

There  was  a  brewery  at  Chamalieres,  between  Clermont  and 
Eoyat.  Pasteur  began  by  visiting  it  with  eager  curiosity, 
inquiring  into  the  minutest  details,  endeavouring  to  find  out 
the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  every  process,  and  receiving 
vague  answers  with  much  astonishment.  M.  Kuhn,  the 
Chamalieres  brewer,  did  not  know  much  more  about  beer  than 
did  his  fellow  brewers  in  general.  Very  little  was  known  at 
that  time  about  the  way  it  was  produced ;  when  brewers  re- 
ceived complaints  from  their  customers,  they  procured  yeast 


208  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

from  a  fresh  source.  In  a  book  of  reference  which  was  then 
much  in  use,  entitled  Alimentary  Substances:  the  Means  of 
Improving  and  Preserving  them,  and  of  Recognizing  their 
Alterations,  six  pages  were  given  up  to  beer  by  the  author,  M. 
Payen,  a  member  of  the  Institute.  He  merely  showed  that 
germinated  barley,  called  malt,  was  diluted,  then  heated  and 
mixed  with  hops,  thus  forming  beer- wort,  which  w^as  sub- 
mitted, when  cold,  to  alcoholic  fermentation  through  the  yeast 
added  to  the  above  liquid.  M.  Payen  conceded  to  beer  some 
nutritive  properties,  but  added,  a  little  disdainfully,  "  Beer, 
perhaps  on  account  of  the  pungent  smell  of  hops ,  does  not  seem 
endowed  with  stimulating  properties  as  agreeable,  or  as  likely 
to  inspire  such  bright  and  cheerful  ideas,  as  the  sweet  and 
varied  aroma  of  the  good  wines  of  France." 

In  a  paragraph  on  the  alterations  of  beer — ''spontaneous 
alterations  " — M.  Payen  said  that  it  was  chiefly  during  the 
summer  that  beer  became  altered.  "It  becomes  acid,  and 
even  noticeably  putrid,  and  ceases  to  be  fit  to  drink." 

Pasteur's  hopes  of  making  French  beer  capable  of  competing 
with  German  beer  were  much  strengthened  by  faith  in  his  own 
method.  He  had,  by  experimental  proof,  destroyed  the  theory 
of  spontaneous  generation ;  he  had  shown  that  chance  has  no 
share  in  fermentations ;  the  animated  nature  and  the  specific 
characteristics  of  those  ferments,  the  methods  of  culture  in 
appropriate  media,  were  so  many  scientific  points  gained.  The 
difficulties  which  remained  to  be  solved  were  the  question  of 
pure  yeast  and  the  search  for  the  causes  of  alteration  which 
make  beer  thick,  acid,  sour,  slimy  or  putrid.  Pasteur  thought 
that  these  alterations  were  probably  due  to  the  development  of 
germs  in  the  air,  in  the  water,  or  on  the  surface  of  the  numerous 
utensils  used  in  a  brewery. 

As  he  advanced  further  and  further  into  that  domain  of  the 
infinitely  small  which  he  had  discovered,  whether  the  subject 
was  wine,  vinegar,  or  silkworms — this  last  study  already  open- 
ing before  him  glimpses  of  light  on  human  pathology — new  and 
unexpected  visions  rose  before  his  sight. 

Pasteur  had  formerly  demonstrated  that  if  a  putrescible 
liquid,  such  as  beef  broth  for  instance,  after  being  previously 
boiled,  is  kept  in  a  vessel  with  a  long  curved  neck,  the  air  only 
reaching  it  after  having  deposited  its  germs  in  the  curves  of  the 
neck,  does  not  alter  it  in  any  way.  He  now  desired  to  invent 
an  apparatus  which  would  protect  the  wort  against  external 


1870—1872  209 

dusts,  against  the  microscopic  germs  ever  ready  to  interfere 
with  the  course  of  proper  fermentation  by  the  introduction  of 
other  noxious  ferments.  It  was  necessary  to  prove  that  beer 
remains  unalterable  whenever  it  does  not  contain  the  organisms 
which  cause  its  diseases.  Many  technical  difficulties  were  in 
the  way,  but  the  brewers  of  Chamalieres  tried  in  the  most 
obliging  manner  to  facilitate  things  for  him. 

This  exchange  of  services  between  science  and  industry  was 
in  accordance  with  Pasteur's  plan ;  though  he  had  been 
prophesying  for  fourteen  years  the  great  progress  which  would 
result  from  an  alliance  between  laboratories  and  factories,  the 
idea  was  hardly  understood  at  that  time.  Yet  the  manufac- 
turers of  Lille  and  Orleans,  the  wine  merchants  and  the  silk- 
worm cultivators  of  the  South  of  France,  and  of  Austria  and 
Italy,  might  well  have  been  called  as  enthusiastic  witnesses  to 
the  advantages  of  such  a  collaboration. 

Pasteur,  happy  to  make  the  fortune  of  others,  intended  to 
organize,  against  the  danger  of  alterations  in  beer,  some  experi- 
ments which  would  give  to  that  industry  solid  notions  resting  on 
a  scientific  basis.  "  Dear  master,"  wrote  he  to  J.  B.  Dumas 
on  August  4,  1871,  from  Clermont,  "  I  have  asked  the  brewer 
to  send  you  twelve  bottles  of  my  beer.  ...  I  hope  you  will  find 
it  compares  favourably  even  with  the  excellent  beer  of  Paris 
cafes."  There  was  a  postscript  to  this  letter,  proving  once 
more  Pasteur's  solicitude  for  his  pupils.  "  A  thousand  thanks 
for  your  kind  welcome  of  Eaulin's  work  ;  Bernard's  support  has 
also  been  promised  him.  The  Academy  could  not  find  a  better 
recipient  for  the  prize.     It  is  quite  exceptional  work." 

Pasteur,  ever  full  of  praises  for  his  pupil,  also  found  excuses 
for  him.  In  spite  of  M.  Duclaux's  pressing  request,  Eaulin 
had  again  found  reasons  to  refuse  an  invitation  to  come  to 
Auvergne  for  a  few  days.  "  I  regret  very  much  that  you  did 
not  come  to  see  us,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  Eaulin,  "especially  on 
account  of  the  beer.  .  .  .  Tell  me  what  you  think  of  doing. 
When  are  you  coming  to  Paris  for  good?  I  shall  want  you  to 
help  me  to  arrange  my  laboratory,  where  everything,  as  you 
know,  has  still  to  be  done ;  it  must  be  put  into  working  order 
as  soon  as  possible." 

Pasteur  would  have  liked  Eaulin  to  come  with  him  to  London 
in  September,  1871,  before  settling  down  in  Paris. 

The  Chamalieres  brewery  was  no  longer  sufficient  for 
Pasteur ;  he  wished  to  see  one  of  those  great  English  breweries 

P 


210  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

which  produce  in  one  year  more  than  100,000  hectoHtres  of  beer. 
The  great  French  savant  was  most  courteously  received  by  the 
managers  of  one  of  the  most  important  breweries  in  London, 
who  offered  to  show  him  round  the  works  where  250  men  were 
employed.  But  Pasteur  asked  for  a  little  of  the  barm  of  the 
porter  which  was  flowing  into  a  trough  from  the  cask.  He 
examined  that  yeast  with  a  microscope,  and  soon  recognized 
a  noxious  ferment  which  he  drew  on  a  piece  of  paper  and 
showed  to  the  bystanders,  saying,  "This  porter  must  leave 
much  to  be  desired,"  to  the  astonished  managers,  who  had 
not  expected  this  sudden  criticism.  Pasteur  added  that  surely 
the  defect  must  have  been  betrayed  by  a  bad  taste,  perhaps 
already  complained  of  by  some  customers.  Thereupon  the 
managers  owned  that  that  very  morning  some  fresh  yeast  had 
had  to  be  procured  from  another  brewery.  Pasteur  asked  to 
see  the  new  yeast,  and  found  it  incomparably  purer,  but  such 
was  not  the  case  with  the  barm  of  the  other  products  then  in 
fermentation — ale  and  pale  ale. 

By  degrees,  samples  of  every  kind  of  beer  on  the  premises 
were  brought  to  Pasteur  and  put  under  the  microscope.  He 
detected  marked  beginnings  of  disease  in  some,  in  others  merely 
a  trace,  but  a  threatening  one.  The  various  foremen  were  sent 
for ;  this  scientific  visit  seemed  like  a  police  inquiry.  The 
owner  of  the  brewery,  who  had  been  fetched,  was  obliged  to 
register,  one  after  another,  these  experimental  demonstrations. 
It  was  only  human  to  show  a  little  surprise,  perhaps  a  little  im- 
patience of  wounded  feeling.  But  it  was  impossible  to  mistake 
the  authority  of  the  French  scientist's  words  :  "  Every  marked 
alteration  in  the  quality  of  the  beer  coincides  with  the  develop- 
ment of  micro-organisms  foreign  to  the  nature  of  true  beer 
yeast."  It  would  have  been  interesting  to  a  psychologist  to 
study  in  the  expression  of  Pasteur's  hearers  those  shades  of 
curiosity,  doubt,  and  approbation,  which  ended  in  the 
thoroughly  English  conclusion  that  there  was  profit  to  be  made 
out  of  this  object  lesson. 

Pasteur  afterwards  remembered  with  a  smile  the  answers 
he  received,  rather  vague  at  first,  then  clearer,  and,  finally — 
interest  and  confidence  now  obtained — the  confession  that 
there  was  in  a  corner  of  the  brewery  a  quantity  of  spoilt  beer, 
which  had  gone  wrong  only  a  fortnight  after  it  was  made,  and 
was  not  drinkable.  "I  examined  it  with  a  microscope,"  said 
Pasteur,    "and    could    not    at    first    detect    any   ferments    of 


1870—1872  211 

disease ;  but  guessing  that  it  might  have  become  clear  through 
a  long  rest,  the  ferments  now  inert  having  dropped  to  the 
bottom  of  the  reservoirs,  I  examined  the  deposit  at  the  bottom 
of  the  reservoirs.  It  was  entirely  composed  of  filaments  of 
disease  unmixed  with  the  least  globule  of  alcoholic  yeast. 
The  complementary  fermentation  of  that  beer  had  therefore 
been  exclusively  a  morbid  fermentation." 

When  he  visited  the  same  brewery  again,  a  week  later,  he 
found  that  not  only  had  a  microscope  been  procured  imme- 
diately, but  the  yeast  of  all  the  beer  then  being  brewed  had  been 
changed. 

Pasteur  was  happy  to  offer  to  the  English,  who  like  to  call 
themselves  practical  men,  a  proof  of  the  usefulness  of  dis- 
interested science,  persuaded  as  he  was  that  the  moral  debt 
incurred  to  a  French  scientist  would  in  some  measure  revert 
to  France  herself.  "We  must  make  some  friends  for  our 
beloved  France,"  he  would  say.  And  if  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation an  Englishman  gave  expression  to  any  doubt  con- 
cerning the  future  of  the  country,  Pasteur,  his  grave  and 
powerful  face  full  of  energy,  would  answer  that  every  French- 
man, after  the  horrible  storm  which  had  raged  for  so  many 
months,  was  valiantly  returning  to  his  daily  task,  whether 
great  or  humble,  each  one  thinking  of  retrieving  the  national 
fall. 

Every  morning,  as  he  left  his  hotel  to  go  to  the  various 
breweries  which  he  was  now  privileged  to  visit  in  their  smallest 
details,  he  observed  this  English  people,  knowing  the  value  of 
time,  seeing  its  own  interests  in  all  things,  consistent  in  its 
ideas  and  in  its  efforts ,  respectful  of  established  institutions  and 
hierarchy ;  and  he  thought  with  regret  how  his  own  country- 
men lacked  these  qualities.  But  if  the  French  are  rightly 
taxed  with  a  feverish  love  of  change,  should  not  justice  be 
rendered  to  that  generous  side  of  the  French  character,  so 
gifted,  capable  of  so  much,  and  which  finds  in  self-sacrifice 
the  secret  of  energy,  for  whom  hatred  is  a  real  suffering? 
"  Let  us  work  !  "  Pasteur's  favourite  phrase  ever  ended  those 
philosophical  discussions. 

He  wanted  to  do  two  years'  work  in  one,  regardless  of 
health  and  strength.  Beyond  the  diseases  of  beer,  avoidable 
since  they  come  from  outside,  he  foresaw  the  application  of 
the  doctrine  of  exterior  germs  to  other  diseases.  But  he  did 
not  allow  his  imagination  to  run  away  with  him ,  and  resolutely 

p  2 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

fixed  his  mind  on  his  present  object,  which  was  the  application 
of  science  to  the  brewing  industry. 

"  The  interest  of  those  visits  to  Enghsh  breweries,"  wrote 
Pasteur  to  EauUn,  "  and  of  the  information  I  am  able  to  col- 
lect (I  hear  that  I  ought  to  consider  this  as  a  great  favour) 
causes  me  to  regret  very  much  that  you  should  be  in  want  of 
rest,  for  I  am  sure  you  would  have  been  charmed  to  acquire 
so  much  instruction  de  visu.  Why  should  you  not  come  for 
a  day  or  two  if  your  health  permits?  Do  as  you  hke  about 
that,  but  in  any  case  prepare  for  immediate  work  on  my 
return.  We  need  not  wait  for  the  new  laboratory ;  we  can 
settle  down  in  the  old  one  and  in  a  Paris  brewery." 

When  Pasteur  returned  to  Paris,  Bertin,  who  had  not  seen 
him  since  the  recent  historic  events,  welcomed  him  with  a 
radiant  delight.  School  friendships  are  like  those  favourite 
books  which  always  open  at  the  page  we  prefer ;  time  has  nd 
hold  on  certain  affections;  ever  new,  ever  young,  they  never 
show  signs  of  age.  Bertin's  love  was  very  precious  to  Pasteur, 
though  the  two  friends  were  as  different  from  each  other  as 
possible.  Pasteur,  ever  preoccupied,  seemed  to  justify  the 
Englishman  who  said  that  genius  consists  in  an  infinite 
capacity  for  taking  pains ;  whilst  Bertin ,  with  his  merry  eyes , 
was  the  very  image  of  a  smiling  philosopher.  In  spite  of  his 
position  as  sub-director,  which  he  most  conscientiously  filled, 
he  was  not  afraid  to  whistle  or  to  sing  popular  songs  as  he 
went  along  the  passages  of  the  Ecole  Normale.  He  came 
round  to  Pasteur's  rooms  almost  every  evening,  bringing  with 
him  joy,  lightness  of  heart,  and  a  rest  and  relaxation  for  the 
mind,  brightening  up  his  friend  by  his  amusing  way  of  look- 
ing at  things  in  general,  and — at  that  time — beer  in  particular. 

Whilst  Pasteur  saw  but  pure  yeast,  and  thought  but  of  spores 
of  disease,  ferments,  and  parasitic  invasions,  Bertin  would 
dilate  on  certain  cafes  in  the  Latin  quarter,  where,  without 
regard  to  great  scientific  principles,  experts  could  be  asked 
to  pronounce  between  the  beer  on  the  premises  and  laboratory 
beer,  harmless  and  almost  agreeable,  but  lacking  in  the  refine- 
ment of  taste  of  w^hich  Bertin,  who  had  spent  many  years  in 
Strasburg,  was  a  competent  judge.  Pasteur,  accustomed  to 
an  absolutely  infallible  method,  like  that  which  he  had  in- 
vented for  the  seeding  of  silkworms,  heard  Bertin  say  to  him, 
"First  of  all,  give  me  a  good  hock,  you  can  talk  learnedly 
afterwards."     Pasteur  acknowledged,  however,  the  improve- 


1870—1872  213 

ments  obtained  by  certain  brewers,  who,  thanks  to  the  ex- 
perience of  years,  knew  how  to  choose  yeast  which  gave  a 
particular  taste,  and  also  how  to  employ  preventive  measures 
against  accidental  and  pernicious  ferments  (such  as  the  use  of 
ice,  or  of  hops  in  a  larger  quantity).  But,  though  laughing 
at  Bertin's  jokes,  Pasteur  was  convinced  that  great  progress  in 
the  brewer's  art  would  date  from  his  studies. 

He  was  now  going  through  a  series  of  experiments,  buying 
at  Bertin's  much  praised  cafes  samples  of  various  famous  beers 
— Strasburg,  Nancy,  Vienna,  Burton's,  etc.  After  letting  the 
samples  rest  for  fwenty-four  hours  he  decanted  them  and 
sowed  one  drop  of  the  deposit  in  vessels  full  of  pure  wort, 
which  he  placed  in  a  temperature  of  20°  C.  After  fifteen  or 
eighteen  days  he  studied  and  tasted  the  yeasts  formed  in  the 
wort,  and  found  them  all  to  contain  ferments  of  diseases.  He 
sowed  some  pure  yeast  in  some  other  vessels,  with  the  same 
precautions,  and  all  the  beers  of  this  series  remained  pure  from 
strange  ferments  and  free  from  bad  taste ;  they  had  merely 
become  flat. 

He  was  eagerly  seeking  the  means  of  judging  how  his  labora- 
tory tests  would  work  in  practice.  He  spent  some  time  at 
Tantonville,  in  Lorraine,  visiting  an  immense  brewery,  of 
which  the  owners  were  the  brothers  Tourtel.  Though  very 
carefully  kept,  the  brewery  was  yet  not  quite  clean  enough  to 
satisfy  him.  It  is  true  that  he  was  more  than  difficult  to 
please  in  that  respect ;  a  small  detail  of  his  everyday  life 
revealed  this  constant  preoccupation.  He  never  used  a  plate 
or  a  glass  without  examining  them  minutely  and  wiping  them 
carefully ;  no  microscopic  speck  of  dust  escaped  his  short- 
sighted eyes.  Whether  at  home  or  with  strangers  he  in- 
variably went  through  this  preliminary  exercise,  in  spite  of 
the  anxious  astonishment  of  his  hostess,  who  usually  feared 
that  some  negligence  had  occurred,  until  Pasteur,  noticing  her 
slight  dismay,  assured  her  that  this  was  but  an  inveterate 
scientist's  habit.  If  he  carried  such  minute  care  into  daily 
life,  we  can  imagine  how  strict  was  his  examination  of  scien- 
tific things  and  of  brewery  tanks. 

After  those  studies  at  Tantonville  with  his  curator,  M. 
Grenet,  Pasteur  laid  down  three  great  principles — 

1.  Every  alteration  either  of  the  wort  or  of  the  beer  itseli 
depends  on  the  development  of  micro-organisms  which  are 
ferments  of  diseases. 


2U  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

2.  These  germs  of  ferments  are  brought  by  the  air,  by  the 
ingredients,  or  by  the  apparatus  used  in  breweries. 

3.  Whenever  beer  contains  no  hving  germs  it  is  unalterable. 
When  once   those  principles   were   formulated  and  proved 

they  were  to  triumph  over  all  professional  uncertainties.  And 
in  the  same  way  that  wines  could  be  preserved  from  various 
causes  of  alteration  by  heating,  bottled  beer  could  escape  the 
development  of  disease  ferments  by  being  brought  to  a  tem- 
perature of  50°  to  55°.  The  application  of  this  process  gave 
rise  to  the  new  word  "  pasteurized  "  beer,  a  neologism  which 
soon  became  current  in  technical  language. 

Pasteur  foresaw  the  distant  consequences  of  these  studies, 
and  wrote  in  his  book  on  beer — 

"When  we  see  beer  and  wine  subjected  to  deep  alterations 
because  they  have  given  refuge  to  micro-organisms  invisibly 
introduced  and  now  swarming  within  them,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  be  pursued  by  the  thought  that  similar  facts  may,  must, 
take  place  in  animals  and  in  man.  But  if  we  are  inclined  to 
believe  that  it  is  so  because  we  think  it  likely  and  possible, 
let  us  endeavour  to  remember,  before  we  affirm  it,  that  the 
greatest  disorder  of  the  mind  is  to  allow  the  will  to  direct 
the  belief." 

This  shows  us  once  more  the  strange  duality  of  this  inspired 
man,  who  associated  in  his  person  the  faith  of  an  apostle  with 
the  inquiring  patience  of  a  scientist. 

He  was  often  disturbed  by  tiresome  discussions  from  the 
researches  to  which  he  would  gladly  have  given  his  whole 
time.  The  heterogenists  had  not  surrendered ;  they  would 
not  admit  that  alterable  organic  liquids  could  be  indefinitely 
preserved  from  putrefaction  and  fermentation  when  in  contact 
with  air  freed  from  dusts. 

Pouchet,  the  most  celebrated  of  them,  who  considered  that 
part  of  a  scientist's  duty  consists  in  vulgarizing  his  discoveries, 
was  preparing  for  the  New  Year,  1872,  a  book  called  The 
Universe :  the  Infinitely  Great  and  the  Infinitely  Small.  He 
enthusiastically  recalled  the  spectacle  revealed  at  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century  by  the  microscope,  which  he  com- 
pared to  a  sixth  sense.  He  praised  the  discoveries  made  in 
1838  by  Ehrenberg  on  the  prodigious  activity  of  infusories, 
but  he  never  mentioned  Pasteur's  name,  leaving  entirely  on 
one  side  the  immense  work  accomplished  by  the  infinitely 
small  and  ever  active  agents  of  putrefaction  and  fermentation. 


1870—1872  215 

He  owned  that  "  a  few  microzoa  did  fly  about  here  and  there," 
but  he  called  the  theory  of  germs  a  "ridiculous  fiction." 

At  the  same  time  Liebig,  who,  since  the  interview  in  July, 
1870,  had  had  time  to  recover  his  health,  published  a  long 
treatise  disputing  certain  facts  put  forward  by  Pasteur. 

Pasteur  had  declared  that,  in  the  process  of  vinegar-making 
known  as  the  German  process,  the  chips  of  beech- wood  placed 
in  the  barrels  were  but  supports  for  the  mycoderma  aceti. 
Liebig,  after  having,  he  said,  consulted  at  Munich  the  chief 
of  one  of  the  largest  vinegar  factories,  who  did  not  believe  in 
the  presence  of  the  mycoderma,  affirmed  that  he  himself  had 
not  seen  a  trace  of  the  fungus  on  chips  which  had  been  used 
in  that  factory  for  twenty-five  years. 

In  order  to  bring  this  debate  to  a  conclusion  Pasteur  sug- 
gested a  very  simple  experiment,  which  was  to  dry  some  of 
those  chips  rapidly  in  a  stove  and  to  send  them  to  Paris,  where 
a  commission,  selected  from  the  members  of  the  Academic 
des  Sciences,  would  decide  on  this  conflict.  Pasteur  under- 
took to  demonstrate  to  the  Commission  the  presence  of  the 
mycoderma  on  the  surface  of  the  chips.  Or  another  means 
might  be  used  :  the  Munich  vinegar  maker  would  be  asked 
to  scald  one  of  his  barrels  with  boiling  water  and  then  to  make 
use  of  it  again.  "According  to  Liebig's  theory,"  said 
Pasteur,  "that  barrel  should  work  as  before,  but  I  affirm  that 
no  vinegar  will  form  in  it  for  a  long  time,  not  until  new  myco- 
derma have  grown  on  the  surface  of  the  chips."  In  effect, 
the  boiling  water  would  destroy  the  little  fungus.  With  the 
usual  clear  directness  which  increased  the  interest  of  the 
public  in  this  scientific  discussion,  Pasteur  formulated  once 
more  his  complete  theory  of  acetification  :  "  The  principle  is 
very  simple  :  whenever  wine  is  transformed  into  vinegar,  it  is 
by  the  action  of  the  layer  of  mycoderma  aceti  developed  on  its 
surface."     Liebig,  however,  refused  the  suggested  test. 

Immediately  after  that  episode  a  fresh  adversary,  M.  Premy, 
a  member  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  began  with  Pasteur 
a  discussion,  which  was  destined  to  be  a  long  one,  on  the 
question  of  the  origin  of  ferments.  M.  Fremy  alluded  to 
the  fact  that  he  had  given  many  years  to  that  subject,  having 
published  a  notice  on  lactic  fermentation  as  far  back  as  1841, 
"at  a  time,"  he  said,  "when  our  learned  colleague — M. 
Pasteur — was  barely  entering  into  science."  .  .  .  "  In  the  pro- 
duction of  wine,"  said  M.  Fremy,  "it  is  the  juice  of  the  fruit 


216  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

itself,  which,  put  in  contact  with  air,  gives  birth  to  grains  of 
yeast  by  the  traiLsformation  of  albuminous  matter,  whilst 
M.  Pasteur  declares  that  the  grains  of  yeast  are  produced  by 
germs."  According  to  M.  Fremy,  ferments  did  not  come  from 
atmospheric  dusts,  but  were  created  by  organic  bodies.  And, 
inventing  for  his  own  use  the  new  word  hemiorganism,  M. 
Fremy  explained  the  word  and  the  action  by  saying  that  there 
are  some  heviiorganized  bodies  which,  by  reason  of  the  vital 
force  with  which  they  are  endowed,  go  through  successive 
decompositions  and  give  birth  to  new  derivatives ;  thus  are 
ferments  engendered. 

Another  colleague,  M.  Trecul,  a  botanist  and  a  genuine 
truth-seeking  savant,  arose  in  his  turn.  He  said  he  had  wit- 
nessed a  whole  transformation  of  microscopic  species  each  into 
the  other,  and  in  support  of  this  theory  he  invoked  the  names 
of  the  three  inseparables — Pouchet,  Musset  and  Joly.  Him- 
self a  heterogenist,  he  had  in  1867  given  a  definition  to  which 
he  willingly  alluded  :  ' '  Heterogenesis  is  a  natural  operation 
by  which  life,  on  the  point  of  abandoning  an  organized  body, 
concentrates  its  action  on  some  particles  of  that  body  and 
forms  thereof  beings  quite  different  from  that  of  the  sub- 
stance which  has  been  borrowed." 

Old  arguments  and  renewed  negations  were  brought  forward, 
and  Pasteur  knew  well  that  this  was  but  a  reappearance  of  the 
old  quarrel ;  he  therefore  answered  by  going  straight  to  the 
point.  At  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  on  December  26,  1871, 
he  addressed  M.  Trecul  in  these  words:  "I  can  assure  our 
learned  colleague  that  he  might  have  found  in  the  treatises  I 
have  published  decisive  answers  to  most  of  the  questions  he  has 
raised.  I  am  really  surprised  to  see  him  tackle  the  question 
of  so-called  spontaneous  generation,  without  having  more  at 
his  disposal  than  doubtful  facts  and  incomplete  observations. 
My  astonishment  was  not  less  than  at  our  last  sitting,  when 
M.  Fremy  entered  upon  the  same  debate  with  nothing  to  pro- 
duce but  superannuated  opinions  and  not  one  new  positive 
fact." 

In  his  passion  for  truth  and  his  desire  to  be  convincing 
Pasteur  threw  out  this  challenge  :  "Would  M.  Fremy  confess 
his  error  if  I  were  to  demonstrate  to  him  that  the  natural  juice 
of  the  grape,  exposed  to  the  contact  of  air,  deprived  of  its 
germs,  can  neither  ferment  nor  give  birth  to  organized 
yeasts?  "     This  interpellation  was  perhaps  more  violent  than 


1870—1872  217 

was  usual  in  the  meetings  of  the  solemn  Academy,  but  scientific 
truth  was  in  question.  And  Pasteur,  recognizing  the  old 
arguments  under  M.  Fremy's  hemiorganism  and  M.  Trecul's 
transformations,  referred  his  two  contradictors  to  the  experi- 
ments by  which  he  had  proved  that  alterable  liquids,  such  as 
blood  or  urine,  could  be  exposed  to  the  contact  of  air  deprived 
of  its  germs  without  undergoing  the  least  fermentation  or  putre- 
faction. Had  not  this  fact  been  the  basis  on  which  Lister  had 
founded  ' '  his  marvellous  surgical  method  ' '  ?  And  in  the  bit- 
terness given  to  his  speech  by  his  irritation  against  error,  the 
epithet  ' '  marvellous  ' '  burst  out  with  a  visible  delight  in  ren- 
dering homage  to  Lister. 

Pasteur,  then  in  full  possession  of  all  the  qualities  of  his 
genius,  was  feeling  the  sort  of  fever  known  to  great  scientists, 
great  artists,  great  writers  :  the  ardent  desire  of  finding,  of 
discovering  something  he  could  leave  to  posterity.  Inter- 
rupted by  these  belated  contradictors  when  he  wanted  to  be 
going  forward,  he  only  restrained  his  impatience  with  difficulty. 

His  old  master,  Balard,  appealed  to  him  in  the  Academic 
itself  (January  22, 1872),  in  the  name  of  their  old  friendship,  to 
disregard  the  attacks  of  his  adversaries,  instead  of  wasting  his 
time  and  his  strength  in  trying  to  convince  them.  He  reminded 
him  of  all  he  had  achieved,  of  the  benefits  he  had  brought  to 
the  industries  of  wine,  beer,  vinegar,  silkworms,  etc.,  and 
alluded  to  the  possibility  foreseen  by  Pasteur  himself  of  pre- 
serving mankind  from  some  of  the  mysterious  diseases  which 
were  perhaps  due  to  germs  in  atmospheric  air.  He  ended  by 
urging  him  to  continue  his  studies  peacefully  in  the  laboratory 
built  for  him,  and  to  continue  the  scientific  education  of  young 
pupils  who  might  one  day  become  worthy  successors  of  Van 
Tieghem,  Duclaux,  Gernez,  Eaulin,  etc.  .  .  .  thus  forming  a 
whole  generation  of  young  scientists  instructed  in  Pasteur's 
school. 

M.  Duclaux  wrote  to  him  in  the  same  sense  :  "I  see  very 
well  what  you  may  lose  in  that  fruitless  struggle — your  rest, 
your  time  and  your  health ;  I  try  in  vain  to  see  any  possible 
advantage." 

But  nothing  stopped  him;  neither  Balard's  public  advice, 
his  pupils'  letters,  even  J.  B.  Dumas'  imploring  looks.  He 
could  not  keep  himself  from  replying.  Sometimes  he  regretted 
his  somewhat  sharp  language,  though — in  his  own  words — 
he  never  associated  it  with  feelings  of  hostility  towards  his 


218  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

contradictors  as  long  as  he  believed  in  their  good  faith ;  what 
he  wanted  was  that  truth  should  have  the  last  word.  "  What 
ijou  lack,  M.  Fremy,  is  familiarity  with  a  microscope,  and  you, 
M.  Trecul,  are  "not  accustomed  to  laboratories!"  "  M. 
Fremy  is  always  trying  to  displace  the  question,"  said  Pasteur, 
ten  months  after  M.  Balard's  appeal. 

Whilst  M.  Fremy  disputed,  discussed,  and  filled  the 
Academic  with  his  objections,  M.  Trecul,  whose  life  was  some- 
what misanthropical  and  whose  usually  sad  and  distrustful 
face  was  seen  nowhere  but  at  the  Institute,  insisted  slowly, 
in  a  mournful  voice,  on  certain  transformations  of  divers  cells 
or  spores  from  one  into  the  other.  Pasteur  declared  that  those 
ideas  of  transformation  were  erroneous ;  but — and  there  lay 
the  interest  of  the  debate — there  was  one  of  those  transforma- 
tions that  Pasteur  himself  had  once  believed  possible  :  that  of 
the  mycoderma  vini,  or  wine  flower,  into  an  alcoholic  ferment 
under  certain  conditions  of  existence. 

A  modification  in  the  life  of  the  mycoderma  when  submerged 
had  led  him  to  believe  in  a  transformation  of  the  mycoderma 
cells  into  yeast  cells.  It  was  on  this  question,  which  had  been 
left  in  suspense,  that  the  debate  with  Trecul  came  to  an  end, 
leaving  to  the  witnesses  of  it  a  most  vivid  memory  of  Pasteur's 
personality — inflexible  when  he  held  his  proofs,  full  of  scruples 
and  reserve  when  seeking  those  proofs,  and  accepting  no  per- 
sonal praise  if  scientific  truth  was  not  recognized  and  honoured 
before  everything  else. 

On  November  11  Pasteur  said  :  ' '  Four  months  ago  doubts 
suddenly  appeared  in  my  mind  as  to  the  truth  of  the  fact  in 
question,  and  which  M.  Trecul  still  looks  upon  as  indisputable. 
...  In  order  to  disperse  those  doubts  I  have  instituted  the 
most  numerous  and  varied  experiments  and  I  have  not  suc- 
ceeded through  those  four  months  in  satisfying  myself  by  irre- 
fragable proofs ;  I  still  have  my  doubts.  Let  this  example 
show  to  M.  Trecul  how  difficult  it  is  to  conclude  definitely  in 
such  delicate  studies." 

Pasteur  studied  the  scientific  point  for  a  long  time,  for  he 
never  abandoned  a  subject,  but  was  ever  ready  to  begin  again 
after  a  failure.  He  modified  the  disposition  of  his  first  tests, 
and  by  the  use  of  special  vessels  and  slightly  complicated 
apparatus  succeeded  in  eliminating  the  only  imaginable  cause 
of  error — the  possible  fall,  during  the  manipulations,  of  exterior 
germs,  that  is,  the  fortuitous  sowing  of  yeast  cells.     After  that 


1870—1872  219 

he  saw  no  more  yeast  and  no  more  active  alcoholic  fermenta- 
tion ;  he  had  therefore  formerly  been  the  dupe  of  a  delusion. 
In  his  Studies  on  Beer  Pasteur  tells  of  his  error  and  its  rectifi- 
cation :  "  At  a  time  when  ideas  on  the  transformations  of 
species  are  so  readily  adopted,  perhaps  because  they  dispense 
with  rigorous  experimentation,  it  is  somewhat  interesting  to 
consider  that  in  the  course  of  my  researches  on  microscopic 
plants  in  a  state  of  purity  I  once  had  occasion  to  believe  in  the 
transformation  of  one  organism  into  another,  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  mycoderma  vini  or  cerevisiae  into  yeast,  and  that 
this  time  I  was  in  error ;  I  had  not  avoided  the  cause  of  illusion 
which  my  confirmed  confidence  in  the  theory  of  germs  had  so 
often  led  me  to  discover  in  the  observations  of  others." 

"The  notion  of  species,"  writes  M.  Duclaux,  who  was  nar- 
rowly associated  with  those  experiments,  "was  saved  for  the 
present  from  the  attacks  directed  against  it ,  and  it  has  not  been 
seriously  contested  since,  at  least  not  on  that  ground." 

Some  failures  are  blessings  in  disguise.  When  discovering 
his  mistake,  Pasteur  directed  his  attention  to  a  strange 
phenomenon.  We  find  in  his  book  on  beer — a  sort  of  labora- 
tory diary — the  following  details  on  his  observation  of  the 
growth  of  some  mycoderma  seed  which  he  had  just  scattered 
over  some  sweetened  wine  or  beer- wort  in  small  china  saucers. 

"  When  the  cells  or  articles  of  the  mycoderma  vini  are  in 
full  germinating  and  propagating  activity  in  contact  with  air 
on  a  sweetened  substratum,  they  live  at  the  expense  of  that 
sugar  and  other  subjacent  materials  absolutely  like  the  animals 
who  also  utilize  the  oxygen  in  the  air  while  freeing  carbonic 
acid  gas,  consuming  this  and  that,  and  correlatively  increasing, 
regenerating  themselves  and  creating  new  materials. 

' '  Under  those  conditions  not  only  does  the  mycoderma  vini 
form  no  alcohol  appreciable  by  analysis,  but  if  alcohol  exists 
in  the  subjacent  liquid  the  mycoderma  reduces  it  to  water  and 
carbonic  acid  gas  by  the  fixation  of  the  oxygen  in  the  air." 
Pasteur,  having  submerged  the  mycoderma  and  studied  it  to 
see  how  it  would  accommodate  itself  to  the  new  conditions 
offered  to  it,  and  whether  it  would  die  like  an  animal 
asphyxiated  by  the  sudden  deprivation  of  oxygen,  saw  that  life 
was  continued  in  the  submerged  cells,  slow,  difficult,  of  a  short 
duration,  but  undoubtedly  life,  and  that  this  life  was  accom- 
panied by  alcoholic  fermentation.  This  time  fermentation  was 
due  to    the    fungus   itself.     The    mycoderma,    originally    an 


220  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

aerobia — that  is,  a  being  to  the  life  and  development  of  which 
air  was  necessary — became,  after  being  submerged,  an 
anaerobia,  that  is,  a  creature  living  without  air  in  the  depths  of 
the  liquid,  and  behaving  after  the  manner  of  ferments. 

This  extended  the  notions  on  aerobise  and  anaerobiae  which 
Pasteur  had  formerly  discovered  whilst  making  researches  con- 
cerning the  vibrio  which  is  the  butyric  ferment,  and  those 
vibriones  which  are  entrusted  with  the  special  fermentation 
known  as  putrefaction.  Between  the  aerobiae  who  require  air 
to  live  and  the  anaerobise  which  perish  when  exposed  to  air, 
there  was  a  class  of  organisms  capable  of  living  for  a  time 
outside  the  influence  of  air.  No  one  had  thought  of  studying 
the  mouldiness  which  develops  so  easily  when  in  contact  with 
air ;  Pasteur  was  curious  to  see  what  became  of  it  when  sub- 
mitted like  the  mycoderma  to  that  unexpected  regime.  He  saw 
the  penicillium,  the  aspergillus,  the  mucor-mucedo  take  the 
character  of  ferments  when  living  without  air,  or  with  a  quan- 
tity of  air  too  small  to  surround  their  organs  as  completely  as 
was  necessary  to  their  aerobia-plant  life.  The  mucor,  when 
submerged  and  thus  forced  to  become  an  anaerobia,  offers  bud- 
ding cells,  and  there  again  it  seemed  as  if  they  were  yeast 
globules.  "But,"  said  Pasteur,  "this  change  of  form  merely 
corresponds  to  a  change  of  function,  it  is  but  a  self-adapta- 
tion to  the  new  life  of  an  anaerobia."  And  then,  generalizing 
again  and  seeking  for  laws  under  the  accumulation  of  isolated 
facts,  he  thought  it  probable  that  ferments  had,  "but  in  a 
higher  degree,  a  character  common  to  most  mucors  if  not  to  all, 
and  probably  possessed  more  or  less  by  all  living  cells,  viz.,  to 
be  alternately  aerobic  or  anaerobic,  according  to  conditions  of 
environment." 

Fermentation,  therefore,  no  longer  appeared  as  an  isolated 
and  mysterious  act ;  it  was  a  general  phenomenon,  subordinate 
however  to  the  small  number  of  substances  capable  of  a  de- 
composition accompanied  by  a  production  of  heat  and  of  being 
used  for  the  alimentation  of  inferior  beings  outside  the  presence 
and  action  of  air.  Pasteur  put  the  whole  theory  into  this 
concise  formula,  "  Fermentation  is  life  without  air." 

"It  will  be  seen,"  wrote  M.  Duclaux,  "to  what  heights 
he  had  raised  the  debate  ;  by  changing  the  mode  of  interpreta- 
tion of  known  facts  he  brought  out  a  new  theory," 

But  this  new  theory  raised  a  chorus  of  controversy.  Pasteur 
held  to  his  proofs ;  he  recalled  what  he  had  published  concern- 


1870—1872  221 

ing  the  typical  ferment,  the  yeast  of  beer,  an  article  inserted  in 
the  reports  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences  for  1861,  and  entitled. 
The  Influence  of  Oxygen  on  the  Development  of  Yeast  and  on 
Alcoholic  Fermentation.  In  this  article  Pasteur,  a  propos  of 
the  chemical  action  connected  with  vegetable  life,  explained  in 
the  most  interesting  manner  the  two  modes  of  life  of  the  yeast 
of  beer. 

1.  The  yeast,  placed  in  some  sweet  liquid  in  contact  with  air, 
assimilates  oxygen  gas  and  develops  abundantly ;  under  those 
conditions,  it  practically  works  for  itself  only,  the  production 
of  alcohol  is  insignificant,  and  the  proportion  between  the 
weight  of  sugar  absorbed  and  that  of  the  yeast  is  infinitesimal. 
2.  But,  in  its  second  mode  of  life,  if  yeast  is  made  to  act  upon 
sugar  without  the  action  of  atmospheric  air,  it  can  no  longer 
freely  assimilate  oxygen  gas,  and  is  reduced  to  abstracting 
oxygen  from  the  fermentescible  matter. 

"  It  seems  therefore  natural,"  wrote  Pasteur,  "  to  admit  that 
when  yeast  is  a  ferment,  acting  out  of  the  reach  of  atmospheric 
air,  it  takes  oxygen  from  sugar,  that  being  the  origin  of  its 
fermentative  character."  It  is  possible  to  put  the  fermenta- 
tive power  of  yeast  through  divers  degrees  of  intensity  by  intro- 
ducing free  oxygen  in  variable  quantities. 

After  comparing  the  yeast  of  beer  to  an  ordinary  plant, 
Pasteur  added  that  ' '  the  analogy  would  be  complete  if  ordinary 
plants  had  an  affinity  for  oxygen  so  strong  as  to  breathe,  by 
withdrawing  that  element  from  unstable  components,  in  which 
case  they  would  act  as  ferments  on  those  substances."  He  sug- 
gested that  it  might  be  possible  to  meet  with  conditions  which 
would  allow  certain  inferior  plants  to  live  away  from  atmo- 
spheric air  in  the  presence  of  sugar,  and  to  provoke  fermenta- 
tion of  that  substance  after  the  manner  of  beer  yeast. 

He  was  already  at  that  time  scattering  germs  of  ideas,  with 
the  intention  of  taking  them  up  later  on  and  experimenting  on 
them,  or,  if  time  should  fail  him,  willingly  offering  them  to  any 
attentive  scientist.  These  studies  on  beer  had  brought  him 
back  to  his  former  studies,  to  his  great  delight. 

"  What  a  sacrifice  I  made  for  you,"  he  could  not  help  saying 
to  Dumas,  with  a  mixture  of  affection  and  deference,  and 
some  modesty,  for  he  apparently  forgot  the  immense  service 
rendered  to  sericiculture ,  ' '  when  I  gave  up  my  studies  on 
ferments  for  five  whole  years  in  order  to  study  silkworms  !  !  !  " 

No  doubt  a  great  deal  of  time  was  also  wasted  by  the  endless 


222  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

discussions  entered  into  by  his  scientific  adversaries ;  but 
those  discussions  certainly  brought  out  and  evidenced  many 
guiding  facts  which  are  now  undisputed,  as  for  instance  the 
following — 1.  Ferments  are  living  beings.  2.  There  is  a 
special  ferment  corresponding  to  each  kind  of  fermentation. 
3,  Ferments  are  not  born  spontaneously. 

Liebig  and  his  partisans  had  looked  upon  fermentation  as  a 
phenomenon  of  death ;  they  had  thought  that  beer  yeast,  and 
in  general  all  animal  and  vegetable  matter  in  a  state  of  putre- 
faction, extended  to  other  bodies  its  own  state  of  decomposition. 

Pasteur,  on  the  contrary,  had  seen  in  fermentation  a 
phenomenon  correlative  with  life ;  he  had  provoked  the  com- 
plete fermentation  of  a  sweet  liquid  which  contained  mineral 
substances  only,  by  introducing  into  it  a  trace  of  yeast,  which, 
instead  of  dying,  lived,  flourished  and  developed. 

To  those  who,  believing  in  spontaneous  generation,  saw  in 
fermentations  but  a  question  of  chance,  Pasteur  by  a  series  of 
experimental  proofs  had  shown  the  origin  of  their  delusion  by 
indicating  the  door  open  to  germs  coming  from  outside.  He 
had  moreover  taught  the  method  of  pure  cultures.  Finally, 
in  those  recent  renewals  of  old  quarrels  on  the  transformations 
into  each  other  of  microscopic  species,  Pasteur,  obliged  by  the 
mycoderma  vini  to  study  closely  its  alleged  transformation, 
which  he  had  himself  believed  possible,  had  thrown  ample 
light  on  the  only  dark  spot  of  his  luminous  domain. 

"It  is  enough  to  think,"  writes  M.  Duclaux  concerning  that 
long  discussion,  "we  have  but  to  remember  that  those  who 
denied  the  specific  nature  of  the  germ  would  now  deny  the 
specific  nature  of  disease,  in  order  to  understand  the  darkness 
in  which  such  opinions  would  have  confined  microbian 
pathology ;  it  was  therefore  important  that  they  should  be 
uprooted  from  every  mind." 


CHAPTEK    VIII 

1873—1877 

Pasteur  had  glimpses  of  another  world  beyond  the 
phenomena  of  fermentation— the  world  of  virus  ferments. 
Two  centuries  earlier,  an  Enghsh  physicist,  Eobert  Boyle, 
had  said  that  he  who  could  probe  to  the  bottom  the  nature  of 
ferments  and  fermentation  would  probably  be  more  capable 
than  any  one  of  explaining  certain  morbid  phenomena.  These 
words  often  recurred  to  the  mind  of  Pasteur,  who  had,  con- 
cerning the  problem  of  contagious  diseases,  those  sudden  flashes 
of  light  wherein  genius  is  revealed.  But,  ever  insisting  on 
experimental  proofs,  he  constrained  his  exalted  imagination  so 
as  to  follow  calmly  and  patiently  the  road  of  experimental 
method.  He  could  not  bear  the  slightest  error,  or  even  hasty 
interpretation,  in  the  praises  addressed  to  him.  One  day, 
during  the  period  of  the  most  ardent  polemics,  in  the  midst  of 
the  struggle  on  spontaneous  generation,  a  medical  man  named 
Declat,  who  declared  that  Pasteur's  experiments  were  "the 
glory  of  our  century  and  the  salvation  of  future  generations," 
gave  a  lecture  on  ' '  The  Infinitesimally  Small  and  their  Eole 
in  the  World."  "  After  the  lecture,"  relates  Dr.  Declat  him- 
self, "  M.  Pasteur,  whom  I  only  knew  by  name,  came  to  me, 
and,  after  the  usual  compliments,  condemned  the  inductions 
I  had  drawn  from  his  experiments.  '  The  arguments,'  he  said, 
'  by  which  you  support  my  theories,  are  most  ingenious,  but 
not  founded  on  demonstrated  facts;  analogy  is  no  proof.'  " 

Pasteur  used  to  speak  very  modestly  of  his  work.  He  said, 
in  a  speech  to  some  Arbois  students,  that  it  was  "through 
assiduous  work,  with  no  special  gift  but  that  of  perseverance 
joined  to  an  attraction  towards  all  that  is  great  and  good,"  that 
he  had  met  with  success  in  his  researches.  He  did  not  add 
that  an  ardent  kindness  of  heart  was  ever  urging  him  forward. 
After  the  services  rendered  within  the  last  ten  years  to  vinegar 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

makers,  silkworm  cultivators,  vine  growers,  and  brewers,  he 
now  wished  to  tackle  what  he  had  had  in  his  mind  since  1861 
— the  study  of  contagious  diseases.  Thus,  with  the  consistent 
logic  of  his  mind,  showing  him  as  it  did  the  possibility  of 
realizing  in  the  future  Eobert  Boyle's  prophecy,  he  associated 
the  secret  power  of  his  feelings ;  not  to  give  those  feelings  their 
share  would  be  to  leave  one  side  of  his  nature  entirely  in  the 
shade.  He  had  himself  revealed  this  great  factor  in  his  char- 
acter when  he  had  said,  "  It  would  indeed  be  a  grand  thing  to 
give  the  heart  its  share  in  the  progress  of  science."  He  was 
ever  giving  it  a  greater  share  in  his  work. 

His  sorrows  had  only  made  him  incline  the  more  towards 
the  griefs  of  others.  The  memory  of  the  children  he  had  lost, 
the  mournings  he  had  witnessed,  caused  him  to  passionately 
desire  that  there  might  be  fewer  empty  places  in  desolate 
homes,  and  that  this  might  be  due  to  the  application  of  methods 
derived  from  his  discoveries,  of  which  he  foresaw  the  immense 
bearings  on  pathology.  Beyond  this,  patriotism  being  for  him 
a  ruling  motive,  he  thought  of  the  thousands  of  young  men  lost 
to  France  every  year,  victims  of  the  tiny  germs  of  murderous 
diseases.  And,  at  the  thought  of  epidemics  and  the  heavy  tax 
they  levy  on  the  whole  world,  his  compassion  extended  itself 
to  all  human  suffering. 

He  regretted  that  he  was  not  a  medical  man,  fancying  that 
it  might  have  facilitated  his  task.  It  was  true  that,  at  every 
incursion  on  the  domain  of  Medicine,  he  was  looked  upon  as 
a  chemist — a  chymiaster,  some  said — who  was  poaching  on  the 
preserves  of  others.  The  distrust  felt  by  the  physicians  in  the 
chemists  was  of  a  long  standing.  In  the  Traite  de  Therapeu- 
tique,  published  in  1855  by  Trousseau  and  Pidoux,  we  find 
this  passage  :  ' '  When  a  chemist  has  seen  the  chemical  condi- 
tions of  respiration,  of  digestion,  or  of  the  action  of  some  drug, 
he  thinks  he  has  given  the  theory  of  those  functions  and 
phenomena.  It  is  ever  the  same  delusion  which  chemists  will 
never  get  over.  We  must  make  up  our  minds  to  that,  but  let 
us  beware  of  trjang  to  profit  by  the  precious  researches  which 
they  would  probably  never  undertake  if  they  were  not  stimu- 
lated by  the  ambition  of  explaining  what  is  outside  their 
range."  Pidoux  never  retrenched  anything  from  two  other 
phrases,  also  to  be  found  in  that  same  treatise  :  "Between  a 
physiological  fact  and  a  pathological  fact  there  is  the  same  dif- 
ference as  between  a  mineral  and  a  vegetable ' ' ;  and  :  "  It  is 


1873—1877  225 

not  within  the  power  of  physiology  to  explain  the  simplest 
pathological  affection."  Trousseau,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
endowed  with  the  far-seeing  intelligence  of  a  great  physician 
attentive  to  the  progress  of  science.  He  was  greatly  interested 
in  Pasteur's  work,  and  fully  appreciated  the  possibihties  opened 
by  each  of  his  discoveries. 

Pasteur,  with  the  simphcity  which  contrasted  with  his  extra- 
ordinary powers,  supposed  that,  if  he  were  armed  with 
diplomas,  he  would  have  greater  authority  to  direct  Medicine 
towards  the  study  of  the  conditions  of  existence  of  phenomena, 
and— correlatively  to  the  traditional  method  of  observation, 
which  consists  in  knowing  and  describing  exactly  the  course 
of  the  disease — to  inspire  practitioners  with  the  desire  to  pre- 
vent and  to  determine  its  cause.  An  unexpected  offer  went 
some  way  towards  filling  what  he  considered  as  a  blank.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1873,  a  place  was  vacant  in  the 
section  of  the  Free  Associates  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine.  He 
was  asked  to  stand  for  it,  and  hastened  to  accept.  He  was 
elected  with  a  majority  of  only  one  vote,  though  he  had  been 
first  on  the  section's  list.  The  other  suffrages  were  divided 
between  Messrs.  Le  Eoy  de  Mericourt,  Brochin,  Lheritier, 
and  Bertillon. 

Pasteur,  as  soon  as  he  was  elected,  promised  himself  that  he 
.would  be  a  most  punctual  academician.  It  was  on  a  Tuesday 
in  April  that  he  attended  his  first  meeting.  As  he  walked 
towards  the  desk  allotted  to  him,  his  paralyzed  left  leg  dragging 
a  little,  no  one  among  his  colleagues  suspected  that  this  quiet 
and  unassuming  new  member  would  become  the  greatest  revolu- 
tionary ever  known  in  Medicine. 

One  thing  added  to  Pasteur's  pleasure  in  being  elected— the 
fact  that  he  would  join  Claude  Bernard.  The  latter  had  often 
felt  somewhat  forlorn  in  that  centre,  where  some  hostility  was 
so  often  to  be  seen  towards  all  that  was  outside  the  Clinic. 
This  was  the  time  when  the  "  princes  of  science,"  or  those  who 
were  considered  as  such,  were  all  physicians.  Every  great 
physician  was  conscious  of  being  a  ruling  power.  The  almost 
daily  habit  of  advising  and  counselling  was  added  to  that  idea 
of  haughty  or  benevolent  superiority  to  the  rest  of  the  world  ; 
and,  accustomed  to  dictate  his  wishes,  the  physician  frequently 
adopted  an  authoritative  tone  and  became  a  sort  of  personage. 
"Have  you  noticed,"  said  Claude  Bernard  to  Pasteur  with  a 
smile  under  which  many  feelings  were  hidden,  "  that,  when  a 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

doctor  enters  a  room,  he  always  looks  as  if  he  was  going  to  say, 
'  I  have  just  been  saving  a  fellow-man  '  ?  " 

Pastern-  knew  not  those  harmless  shafts  which  are  a  revenge 
for  prolonged  pomposity.  Why  need  Claude  Bernard  trouble 
to  wonder  what  So-and-so  might  think?  He  had  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  work  accomplished  and  the  esteem  and 
admiration  of  men  whose  suffrage  more  than  satisfied  him. 
Whilst  Pasteur  w^as  already  desirous  of  spreading  in  the 
Academic  de  Medecine  the  faith  which  inspu-ed  him,  Claude 
Bernard  remembered  the  refractory  state  of  mind  of  those  who, 
at  the  time  of  his  first  lectures  on  experimental  physiology 
applied  to  medicine,  affirmed  that  "physiology  can  be  of  no 
practical  use  in  medicine  ;  it  is  but  a  science  de  luxe  which  could 
well  be  dispensed  with."  He  energetically  defended  this 
science  de  luxe  as  the  very  science  of  life.  In  his  opening 
lecture  at  the  Museum  in  1870,  he  said  that  "descriptive 
anatomy  is  to  physiology  as  geography  to  history ;  and,  as  it 
is  not  sufficient  to  understand  the  topography  of  a  country  to 
know  its  history,  so  is  it  not  enough  to  know  the  anatomy  of 
(an  organ  to  understand  its  functions."  Mery,  an  old  surgeon, 
familiarly  compared  anatomists  to  those  errand  boys  in  large 
towns,  who  know  the  names  of  the  streets  and  the  numbers  of 
the  houses,  but  do  not  know  what  goes  on  inside.  There  are 
indeed  in  tissues  and  organs  physico-chemical  phenomena  for 
which  anatomy  cannot  account. 

Claude  Bernard  was  convinced  that  Medicine  would  gradually 
emerge  from  quackery,  and  this  by  means  of  the  experimental 
method,  like  all  other  science.  "No  doubt,"  he  said,  "we 
shall  not  live  to  see  the  blossoming  out  of  scientific  medicine, 
but  such  is  the  fate  of  humanity ;  those  that  sow  on  the  field 
of  science  are  not  destined  to  reap  the  fruit  of  their  labours." 
And  so  saying,  Claude  Bernard  continued  to  sow. 

It  is  true  that  here  and  there  flashes  of  light  had  preceded 
Pasteur;  but,  instead  of  being  guided  by  them,  most  doctors 
continued  to  advance  majestically  in  the  midst  of  darkness. 
Whenever  murderous  diseases,  scourges  of  humanity,  were  in 
question,  long  French  or  Latin  w'ords  were  put  forward,  such 
as  "  Epidemic  genius,"  fatum,  quid  ignotum  quid  divinum,  etc. 
Medical  constitution  was  also  a  useful  word,  elastic  and  applic- 
able to  anything. 

When  the  Vale  de  Grace  physician,  Villemin — a  modest, 
gentle-voiced  man,  who,  under  his  quiet  exterior,  hid  a  veritable 


1873—1877  227 

thirst  for  scientific  truth — after  experimental  researches  carried 
on  from  1865  to  1869,  brought  the  proof  that  tuberculosis  is  a 
disease  which  reproduces  itself,  and  cannot  be  reproduced  but 
by  itself  ;  in  a  word,  specific,  inoculable,  and  contagious,  he  was 
treated  almost  as  a  perturber  of  medical  order. 

Dr.  Pidoux,  an  ideal  representative  of  traditional  medicine, 
with  his  gold-buttoned  blue  coat  and  his  reputation  equally- 
great  in  Paris  and  at  the  Eaux-Bonnes,  declared  that  the  idea  of 
specificity  was  a  fatal  thought.  Himself  a  pillar  of  the  doctrine 
of  diathesis  and  of  the  morbid  spontaneity  of  the  organism,  he 
exclaimed  in  some  much  applauded  speeches  :  "  Tuberculosis  ! 
but  that  is  the  common  result  of  a  quantity  of  divers  external 
and  internal  causes,  not  the  product  of  a  specific  agent  ever  the 
same  !  ' '  Was  not  this  disease  to  be  looked  upon  as  ' '  one  and 
multiple  at  the  same  time,  bringing  the  same  final  conclusion, 
the  necrobiotic  and  infecting  destruction  of  the  plasmatic  tissue 
bf  an  organ  by  a  number  of  roads  which  the  hygienist  and 
physician  must  endeavour  to  close  ? ' '  Where  would  these 
specificity  doctrines  lead  to  ?  "  Applied  to  chronic  diseases , 
these  doctrines  condemn  us  to  the  research  of  specific  remedies 
or  vaccines,  and  all  progress  is  arrested.  .  .  .  Specificity  im- 
mobilizes medicine."  These  phrases  were  reproduced  by  the 
medical  press. 

The  bacillus  of  tuberculosis  had  not  been  discovered  by  Vil- 
lemin ;  it  was  only  found  and  isolated  much  later,  in  1882,  by 
Dr.  Koch ;  but  Villemin  suspected  the  existence  of  a  virus.  In 
order  to  demonstrate  the  infectious  nature  of  tuberculosis,  he 
experimented  on  animals,  multiplying  inoculations  ;  he  took  the 
sputum  of  tuberculous  patients,  spread  it  on  cotton  wool,  dried 
it,  and  then  made  the  cotton  wool  into  a  bed  for  little  guinea- 
pigs,  who  became  tuberculous.  Pidoux  answered  these  precise 
facts  by  declaring  that  Villemin  was  fascinated  by  inoculation, 
adding  ironically,  "  Then  all  we  doctors  have  to  do  is  to  set 
out  nets  to  catch  the  sporules  of  tuberculosis,  and  find  a 
vaccine." 

That  sudden  theory  of  phthisis,  falling  from  the  clouds, 
resembled  Pasteur's  theory  of  germs  floating  in  air.  Was  it 
not  better,  urged  Pidoux  the  heterogenist,  to  remain  in  the 
truer  and  more  philosophical  doctrine  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion? "  Let  us  believe,  until  the  contrary  is  proved,  that  we 
are  right,  we  partisans  of  the  common  etiology  of  phthisis,  par- 
tisans  of  the    spontaneous   tuberculous    degeneration    of    the 

Q  2 


228  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

organism  under  the  influence  of  accessible  causes,  which  we 
seek  everywhere  in  order  to  cut  down  the  evil  in  its  roots." 

A  reception  somewhat  similar  to  that  given  to  Villemin  was 
reserved  for  Davaine,  who,  having  meditated  on  Pasteur's 
works  on  butyric  ferment  and  the  part  played  by  that  ferment, 
compared  it  and  its  action  with  certain  parasites  visible  with 
a  microscope  and  observed  by  him  in  the  blood  of  animals  which 
had  died  of  charbon  disease.  By  its  action  and  its  rapid  multi- 
plication in  the  blood,  this  agent  endowed  with  life  probably 
acted,  said  Davaine,  after  the  manner  of  ferments.  The  blood 
was  modified  to  that  extent  that  it  speedily  brought  about  the 
death  of  the  infected  animal.  Davaine  called  those  filaments 
found  in  anthrax  "bacteria,"  and  added,  "They  have  a  place 
in  the  classification  of  living  beings."  But  what  was  that 
animated  virus  to  many  doctors  ?  They  answered  experimental 
proofs  by  oratorical  arguments. 

At  the  very  time  when  Pasteur  took  his  seat  at  the  Academy 
of  Medicine,  Davaine  was  being  violently  attacked;  his  experi- 
ments on  septicaemia  were  the  cause,  or  the  pretext.  But  the 
mere  tone  of  the  discussions  prepared  Pasteur  for  future  battles. 
The  theory  of  germs,  the  doctrine  of  virus  ferments,  all  this 
was  considered  as  a  complete  reversal  of  acquired  notions,  a 
heresy  which  had  to  be  suppressed.  A  well-known  surgeon. 
Dr.  Chassaignac,  spoke  before  the  Academie  de  Medecine  of 
what  he  called  "laboratory  surgery,  which  has  destroyed  very 
many  animals  and  saved  very  few  human  beings."  In  order  to 
remind  experimentalists  of  the  distance  between  them  and 
practitioners,  he  added  :  "  Laboratory  results  should  be  brought 
out  in  a  circumspect,  modest  and  reserved  manner,  as  long  as 
they  have  not  been  sanctioned  by  long  clinical  researches,  a 
sanction  without  which  there  is  no  real  and  practical  medical 
science."  Everything,  he  said,  could  not  be  resolved  into  a 
question  of  bacteria!  And,  ironically,  far  from  realizing  the 
truth  of  his  sarcastic  prophecy,  he  exclaimed,  "  Typhoid  fever, 
bacterization  !     Hospital  miasma,  bacterization  !  " 

Every  one  had  a  word  to  say.  Dr.  Piorry,  an  octogenarian, 
somewhat  weighed  down  with  the  burden  of  his  years  and 
reputation,  rose  to  speak  with  his  accustomed  solemnity.  He 
had  found  for  Villemin's  experiments  the  simple  explanation 
that  "the  tuberculous  matter  seems  to  be  no  other  than  pus, 
which,  in  consequence  of  its  sojourn  in  the  organs,  has  under- 
gone varied  and  numerous  modifications ' '  ;  and  he  now  im- 


1873—1877 

agined  that  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  fatal  accidents  due 
to  septicaemia  after  surgical  operations  was  the  imperfect  ven- 
tilation of  hospital  wards.  It  was  enough,  he  thought,  that 
putrid  odours  should  not  be  perceptible,  for  the  rate  of  mor- 
tality to  be  decreased. 

It  was  then  affirmed  that  putrid  infection  was  not  an  or- 
ganized ferment,  that  inferior  organisms  had  in  themselves 
no  toxic  action,  in  fact,  that  they  were  the  result  and  not 
the  cause  of  putrid  alteration;  whereupon  Dr.  Bouillaud,  a 
contemporary  of  Dr.  Piorry,  called  upon  their  new  colleague 
to  give  his  opinion  on  the  subject. 

It  would  have  been  an  act  of  graceful  welcome  to  Pasteur,  and 
a  fitting  homage  to  the  memory  of  the  celebrated  Trousseau,  who 
had  died  five  years  before,  in  1867,  if  any  member  present  had 
then  quoted  one  of  the  great  practitioner's  last  lectures  at  the 
Hotel  Dieu,  wherein  he  predicted  a  future  for  Pasteur's  works  : 
' '  The  great  theory  of  ferments  is  therefore  now  connected 
with  an  organic  function ;  every  ferment  is  a  germ,  the  life 
of  which  is  manifested  by  a  special  secretion.  It  may  be 
'that  it  is  so  for  morbid  viruses ;  they  may  be  ferments,  which, 
deposited  within  the  organism  at  a  given  moment  and  under 
determined  ch'cumstances,  manifest  themselves  by  divers  pro- 
ducts. So  will  the  variolous  ferment  produce  variolic  fer- 
mentation, giving  birth  to  thousands  of  pustules,  and  likewise 
the  virus  of  glanders,  that  of  sheep  pox,  etc.   .   .   . 

"  Other  viruses  appear  to  act  locally,  but,  nevertheless,  they 
ultimately  modify  the  whole  organism,  as  do  gangrene,  ma- 
lignant pustula,  contagious  erysipelas,  etc.  May  it  not  be 
supposed,  under  such  circumstances,  that  the  ferment  or  or- 
ganized matter  of  those  viruses  can  be  carried  about  by  the 
lancet,  the  atmosphere  or  the  linen  bandages?" 

But  it  occurred  to  no  one  in  the  Academy  to  quote  those 
forgotten  words. 

Pasteur,  answering  Bouillaud,  recalled  his  own  researches 
on  lactic  and  butyric  fermentations  and  spoke  of  his  studies 
on  beer.  He  stated  that  the  alteration  of  beer  was  due  to 
the  presence  of  filiform  organisms;  if  beer  becomes  altered, 
it  is  because  it  contains  germs  of  organized  ferments.  "  The 
correlation  is  certain,  indisputable,  between  the  disease  and 
the  presence  of  organisms."  He  spoke  those  last  words  with 
so  much  emphasis  that  the  stenographer  who  was  taking  down 
the  extempore  speeches  underlined  them. 


230  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

A  few  months  later,  on  November  17,  1873,  he  read  to  the 
Academy  a  paper  containing  further  developments  of  his  prin- 
ciples. "  In  order  that  beer  should  become  altered  and  become 
sour,  putrid,  slimy,  '  ropy,'  acid  or  lactic,  it  is  necessary  that 
foreign  organisms  should  develop  within  it,  and  those  or- 
ganisms only  appear  and  multiply  when  those  germs  are 
already  extant  in  the  liquid  mass."  It  is  possible  to  oppose 
the  introduction  of  those  germs;  Pasteur  drew  on  the  black- 
board the  diagram  of  an  apparatus  which  only  communicated 
with  the  outer  air  by  means  of  tubes  fulfilling  the  office  of 
the  sinuous  necks  of  the  glass  vessels  he  had  used  for  his 
experiments  on  so-called  spontaneous  generation.  He  entered 
into  every  detail,  demonstrating  that  as  long  as  pure  yeast 
alone  had  been  sown,  the  security  was  absolute.  "That  which 
has  been  put  forward  on  the  subject  of  a  possible  transforma- 
tion of  yeast  into  bacteria,  vibriones,  mycoderma  aceti  and 
vulgar  mucors,  or  vice  versa,  is  mistaken." 

He  wrote  in  a  private  letter  on  the  subject  :  "  These  simple 
and  clear  results  have  cost  me  many  sleepless  nights  before 
presenting  themselves  before  me  in  the  precise  form  I  have 
now  given  them." 

But  his  own  conviction  had  not  yet  penetrated  the  minds 
of  his  adversaries,  and  M.  Tr^cul  was  still  supporting  his 
hypothesis  of  transformations,  the  so-called  proofs  of  which, 
according  to  Pasteur,  rested  on  a  basis  of  confused  facts  tainted 
with  involuntary  errors  due  to  imperfect  experiments. 

In  December,  1873,  at  a  sitting  of  the  Academy,  he  pre- 
sented M.  Trecul  with  a  few  little  flagons,  in  which  he  had 
sown  some  pure  seed  of  penicilliiim  glaucum,  begging  him  to 
accept  them  and  to  observe  them  at  his  leisure,  assuring  him 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  a  trace  of  any  transformation 
of  the  spores  into  yeast  cells. 

"When  M.  Trecul  has  finished  the  little  task  which  I  am 
soliciting  of  his  devotion  to  the  knowledge  of  truth,"  con- 
tinued Pasteur,  "  I  shall  give  him  the  elements  of  a  similar 
work  on  the  mycoderma  vini;  in  other  words,  I  shall  bring  to 
M.  Trecul  some  absolutely  pure  mycoderma  vini  with  which 
he  can  reproduce  his  former  experiments  and  recognize  the 
exactness  of  the  facts  which  I  have  lately  announced." 

Pasteur  concluded  thus  :  ' '  The  Academy  will  allow  me  to 
make  one  last  remark.  It  must  be  owned  that  my  contra- 
dictors have  been  peculiarly  unlucky  in  taking  the  occasion 


1873—1877  231 

of  my  paper  on  the  diseases  of  beer  to  renew  this  discussion. 
How  is  it  they  did  not  understand  that  my  process  for  the 
fabrication  of  inalterable  beer  could  not  exist  if  beer  wort  in 
contact  with  air  could  present  all  the  transformations  of  which 
they  speak?  And  that  work  on  beer,  entirely  founded  as  it 
is  on  the  discovery  and  knowledge  of  some  microscopic  beings, 
has  it  not  followed  my  studies  on  vinegar,  on  the  mycoderma 
aceti  and  on  the  new  process  of  acetification  which  I  have  in- 
vented? Has  not  that  work  been  followed  by  my  studies  on 
the  causes  of  wine  diseases  and  the  means  of  preventing  them, 
still  founded  on  the  discovery  and  knowledge  of  non-spontane- 
ous microscopic  beings?  Have  not  these  last  researches  been 
followed  by  the  discovery  of  means  to  prevent  the  silkworm 
disease,  equally  deducted  from  the  study  of  non-spontaneous 
microscopic  beings? 

' '  Are  not  all  the  researches  I  have  pursued  for  seventeen 
years,  at  the  cost  of  many  efforts,  the  product  of  the  same 
ideas,  the  same  principles,  pushed  by  incessant  toil  into  con- 
sequences ever  new?  The  best  proof  that  an  observer  is  in 
the  right  track  lies  in  the  uninterrupted  fruitfulness  of  his 
work." 

This  fruitfulness  was  evidenced,  not  only  by  Pasteur's  per- 
sonal labours,  but  by  those  he  inspired  and  encouraged.  Thus, 
in  that  same  period,  M.  Gayon,  a  former  student  of  the  Ecole 
Normale,  whom  he  had  chosen  as  curator,  started  on  some 
researches  on  the  alteration  of  eggs.  He  stated  that  when 
an  egg  is  stale,  rotten,  this  is  due  to  the  presence  and  multi- 
plication of  infinitesimally  small  beings ;  the  germs  of  those 
organisms  and  the  organisms  themselves  come  from  the  ovi- 
duct of  the  hen  and  penetrate  even  into  the  points  where  the 
shell  membrane  and  the  albumen  are  formed.  "  The  result 
is,"  concluded  M.  Gay  on,  "that,  during  the  formation  of 
those  various  elements,  the  egg  may  or  may  not,  according 
to  circumstances,  gather  up  organisms  or  germs  of  organisms, 
and  consequently  bear  within  itself,  as  soon  as  it  is  laid,  the 
cause  of  ulterior  alterations.  It  will  be  seen  at  the  same 
time  that  the  number  of  eggs  susceptible  of  alteration  may 
vary  from  one  hen  to  another,  as  well  as  between  the  eggs  of 
one  hen,  for  the  organisms  to  be  observed  on  the  oviduct  rise 
to  variable  heights." 

If  the  organisms  which  alter  the  eggs  and  cause  them  to 
rot  "were  formed,"  said  Pasteur,  "by  the  spontaneous  self- 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

organization  of  the  matter  within  the  egg  into  those  small 
beings,  all  eggs  should  putrefy  equally,  whereas  they  do  not." 
At  the  end  of  M.  Gayon's  thesis— which  had  not  taken  so 
long  as  Eaulin's  to  prepare,  only  three  years— we  find  the 
following  conclusion  :  ' '  Putrefaction  in  eggs  is  correlative  with 
the  development  and  multiplication  of  beings  which  are  bac- 
teria when  in  contact  with  air  and  vibriones  when  away  from 
the  contact  of  air.  Eggs,  from  that  point  of  view,  do  not 
depart  from  the  general  law  discovered  by  M.  Pasteur." 

Pasteur's  influence  was  now  spreading  beyond  the  Labora- 
tory of  Physiological  Chemistry,  as  the  small  laboratory  at  the 
Ecole  Normale  was  called. 

In  the  treatise  he  had  published  in  1862,  criticizing  the 
doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation,  he  had  mentioned,  among 
the  organisms  produced  by  urine  in  putrefaction,  the  exist- 
ence of  a  torulacea  in  very  small-grained  chaplets.  A  physician. 
Dr.  Traube,  in  1864,  had  demonstrated  that  Pasteur  was  right 
in  thinking  that  ammoniacal  fermentation  was  due  to  this 
torulacea,  whose  properties  were  afterwards  studied  w^ith  in- 
finite care  by  M.  Van  Tieghem,  a  former  student  of  the  Ecole 
Normale,  who  had  inspired  Pasteur  with  a  deep  affection. 
Pasteur,  in  his  turn,  completed  his  own  observations  and 
assured  himself  that  this  little  organized  ferment  was  to  be 
found  in  every  case  of  ammoniacal  urine.  Finally,  after  prov- 
ing that  boracic  acid  impeded  the  development  of  that  am- 
moniacal ferment,  he  suggested  to  M.  Guy  on,  the  celebrated 
surgeon ,  the  use  of  boracic  acid  for  washing  out  the  bladder ; 
M.  Guyon  put  the  advice  into  practice  w4th  success,  and  attri- 
buted the  credit  of  it  to  Pasteur. 

In  a  letter  written  at  the  end  of  1873,  Pasteur  wrote  :  "How 
I  wish  I  Had  enough  health  and  sufficient  knowledge  to  throw 
myself  body  and  soul  into  the  experimental  study  of  one  of 
our  infectious  diseases!  "  He  considered  that  his  studies  on 
fermentations  would  lead  him  in  that  direction ;  he  thought 
that  when  it  should  be  made  evident  that  every  serious  altera- 
tion in  beer  was  due  to  the  micro-organisms  w^hich  find  in 
that  liquid  a  medium  favourable  to  their  development,  when 
it  should  be  seen  that— in  contradiction  to  the  old  ideas  by 
which  those  alterations  are  looked  upon  as  spontaneous,  in- 
herent in  those  liquids,  and  depending  on  their  nature  and 
composition — the  cause  of  those  diseases  is  not  interior  but 
exterior,  then  would  indeed  be  defeated  the  doctrine  of  men 


1873—1877 

like  Pidoux,  who  a  propos  of  diseases,  said  :  "  Disease  is  in 
us,  of  us,  by  us,"  and  who,  a  propos  of  small-pox,  even  said 
that  he  was  not  certain  that  it  could  only  proceed  from  inocula- 
tion and  contagion. 

Though  the  majority  of  physicians  and  surgeons  considered 
that  it  was  waste  of  time  to  listen  to  "  a  mere  chemist,"  there 
was  a  small  group  of  young  men ,  undergraduates ,  who ,  in  their 
thirst  for  knowledge,  assembled  at  the  Academie  de  Medecine 
every  Tuesday,  hoping  that  Pasteur  might  bring  out  one  of 
his  communications  concerning  a  scientific  method  "  which 
resolves  each  difficulty  by  an  easily  interpreted  experiment, 
delightful  to  the  mind,  and  at  the  same  time  so  decisive  that 
it  is  as  satisfying  as  a  geometrical  demonstration,  and  gives  an 
impression  of  security." 

Those  words  were  written  by  one  of  those  who  came  to  the 
Academie  sittings,  feeling  that  they  were  on  the  eve  of  some 
great  revelations.  He  was  a  clinical  assistant  of  Dr.  Behier's, 
and,  busy  as  he  was  with  medical  analysis,  he  was  going  over 
Pasteur's  experiments  on  fermentations  for  his  own  edifica- 
tion. He  was  delighted  with  the  sureness  of  the  Pastorian 
methods,  and  was  impatient  to  continue  the  struggle  now  begun. 
Enthusiasm  was  evinced  in  his  brilliant  eyes,  in  the  timbre 
of  his  voice,  clear,  incisive,  slightly  imperious  perhaps,  and  in 
his  implacable  desire  for  logic.  Of  solitary  habits,  with  no 
ambition  for  distinction  or  degrees,  he  worked  unceasingly  for 
sheer  love  of  science.  The  greatest  desire  of  that  young  man 
of  twenty-one,  quite  unknown  to  Pasteur,  was  to  be  one  day 
admitted,  in  the  very  humblest  rank,  to  the  Ecole  Normale 
laboratory.     His  name  was  E-oux. 

Was  not  that  medical  student,  that  disciple  lost  in  the  crowd, 
an  image  of  the  new  generation  hungering  for  new  ideas,  more 
convinced  than  the  preceding  one  had  been  of  the  necessity 
of  proofs?  Struck  by  the  unstable  basis  of  medical  theories, 
those  young  men  divined  that  the  secret  of  progress  in  hospitals 
was  to  be  found  in  the  laboratories.  Medicine  and  surgery  in 
those  days  were  such  a  contrast  to  what  they  are  now  that  it 
seems  as  if  centuries  divided  them.  No  doubt  one  day  some 
professor,  some  medical  historian,  will  give  us  a  full  account 
of  that  vast  and  immense  progress.  But,  whilst  awaiting  a 
fully  competent  work  of  that  kind,  it  is  possible,  even  in  a  book 
such  as  this  (which  is,  from  many  causes,  but  a  hasty  epitome 
of   many    very   different    things    spread   over    a    very    simple 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

biography),  to  give  to  a  reader  unfamiliar  with  such  studies  a 
certain  idea  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in  the  history 
of  civilization ,  affecting  the  preservation  of  innumerable  human 
lives. 

"A  pin-prick  is  a  door  open  to  Death,"  said  the  surgeon 
Velpeau.  That  open  door  widened  before  the  smallest  opera- 
tion ;  the  lancing  of  an  abscess  or  a  whitlow  sometimes  had  such 
serious  consequences  that  surgeons  hesitated  before  the  slightest 
use  of  the  bistoury.  It  was  much  worse  when  a  great  surgical 
intervention  was  necessary,  though,  through  the  irony  of  things, 
the  immediate  success  of  the  most  difficult  operations  was  now 
guaranteed  by  the  progress  of  skill  and  the  precious  discovery 
of  anaesthesia.  The  patient,  his  will  and  consciousness  sus- 
pended, awoke  from  the  most  terrible  operation  as  from  a 
dream.  But  at  that  very  moment  when  the  surgeon's  art  was 
emboldened  by  being  able  to  disregard  pain,  it  was  arrested, 
disconcerted,  and  terrified  by  the  fatal  failures  which  super- 
vened after  almost  every  operation.  The  words  pyaemia, 
gangrene,  erysipelas,  septicaemia,  purulent  infection,  were 
bywords  in  those  days. 

In  the  face  of  those  terrible  consequences,  it  had  been 
thought  better,  about  forty  years  ago,  to  discourage  and  even 
to  prohibit  a  certain  operation ,  then  recently  invented  and  prac- 
tised in  England  and  America,  ovariotomy,  "even,"  said 
Velpeau,  "  if  the  reported  cures  be  true."  In  order  to  express 
the  terror  inspired  by  ovariotomy,  a  physician  went  so  far  as 
to  say  that  it  should  be  ' '  classed  among  the  attributes  of  the 
executioner." 

As  it  was  supposed  that  the  infected  air  of  the  hospitals 
might  be  the  cause  of  the  invariably  fatal  results  of  that  opera- 
tion, the  Assistance  Publique  ^  hired  an  isolated  house  in  the 
Avenue  de  Meudon,  near  Paris,  a  salubrious  spot.  In  1863, 
ten  women  in  succession  were  sent  to  that  house ;  the  neigh- 
bouring inhabitants  watched  those  ten  patients  entering  the 
house,  and  a  short  time  afterwards  their  ten  coffins  being  taken 
away.  In  their  terrified  ignorance  they  called  that  house  the 
House  of  Crime. 

Surgeons  were  asking  themselves  whether  they  did  not 
carry  death  with  them,  unconsciously  scattering  virus  and 
subtle  poisons. 

^  Assistance  Publique,  oflBcial  organization  of  the  charitable  works 
supported  by  the  State.     [Trans.] 


1873—1877  S35 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  surgery  had 
positively  retrograded ;  the  mortahty  after  operations  was  in- 
finitely less  in  the  preceding  centuries,  because  antisepsis  was 
practised  unknowingly,  though  cauterizations  by  fire,  boiling 
liquids  and  disinfecting  substances.     In  a  popular  handbook 
published  in  1749,  and  entitled  Medicine  and  Surgery  for  the 
Poor,  we  read  that  wounds  should  be  kept  from  the  contact 
of  air;  it  was  also  recommended  not  to  touch  the  wound  with 
fingers  or  instruments.     "It  is  very  salutary,  when  uncover- 
ing the  wound  in  order  to  dress  it,  to  begin  by  applying  over 
its  whole  surface  a  piece  of  cloth  dipped  into  hot  wine  or 
brandy."     Good  results  had  been  obtained  by  the  great  sur- 
geon Larrey,  under  the  first  Empire,  by  hot  oil,  hot  brandy, 
and    unfrequent    dressings.       But,    under    the    influence    of 
Broussais,\he  theory  of  inflammation  caused  a  retrogression 
in  surgery.     Then  came   forth   basins   for   making  poultices, 
packets  of  charpie  (usually  made  of  old  hospital  sheets  merely 
washed),  and  rows  of  pots  of  ointment.     It  is  true  that,  during 
the  second  half  of  the  last  century,  a  few  attempts  were  made 
to  renew  the  use  of  alcoholized  water  for  dressings.     In  1868, 
at  the  time  when  the  mortality  after  amputation  in  hospitals 
was  over  sixty  per  cent..   Surgeon  Leon  Le   Fort   banished 
sponges,  exacted  from  his  students  scrupulous  cleanliness  and 
constant    washing    of   hands  and    instruments    before    every 
operation,  and  employed  alcoholized  water  for  dressings.     But 
though  he  obtained  such  satisfactory  results  as  to  lower,  in 
his  wards   at  the  Hopital   Cochin,  the  average  of  mortality 
after   amputations   to   twenty-four  per   cent.,   his   colleagues 
were  very  far  from  suspecting  that  the  first  secret  for  prevent- 
ing fatal  results   after   operations  consisted   in   a  reform   of 
the  dressings. 

Those  who  visited  an  ambulance  ward  during  the  war  of 
1870,  especially  those  who  were  medical  students,  have  pre- 
served such  a  recollection  of  the  sight  that  they  do  not,  even 
now,  care  to  speak  about  it.  It  was  perpetual  agony,  the 
wounds  of  all  the  patients  were  suppurating,  a  horrible  fetor 
pervaded  the  place,  and  infectious  septicaemia  was  everywhere. 
"  Pus  seemed  to  germinate  everywhere,"  said  a  student  of  that 
time  (M.  Landouzy,  who  became  a  professor  at  the  Faculty 
of  Medicine),  "as  if  it  had  been  sown  by  the  surgeon."  M. 
Landouzy  also  recalled  the  words  of  M.  Denonvilliers,  a  sur- 
geon  of   the   Charit6   Hospital,   whom  he   calls    "a  splendid 


236  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

operator.  ...  a  virtuoso,  and  a  dilettante  in  the  art  of  operat- 
ing," who  said  to  his  pupils  :  "  When  an  amputation  seems 
necessary,  think  ten  times  about  it,  for  too  often,  when  w^e 
decide  upon  an  operation,  we  sign  the  patient's  death-war- 
rant." Another  surgeon,  who  must  have  been  profoundly 
discouraged  in  spite  of  his  youthful  energy,  M.  Verneuil,  ex- 
claimed :  "  There  were  no  longer  any  precise  indications,  any 
rational  provisions;  nothing  was  successful,  neither  abstention, 
conservation,  restricted  or  radical  mutilation,  early  or  post- 
poned extraction  of  the  bullets,  dressings  rare  or  frequent, 
emollient  or  excitant ,  dry  or  moist ,  with  or  without  drainage ; 
we  tried  everything  in  vain  !  "  During  the  siege  of  Paris,  in 
the  Grand  Hotel,  which  had  been  turned  into  an  ambulance, 
Nelaton,  in  despair  at  the  sight  of  the  death  of  almost  every 
patient  who  had  been  operated  on,  declared  that  he  who  should 
conquer  purulent  infection  would  deserve  a  golden  statue. 

It  was  only  at  the  end  of  the  war  that  it  occurred  to  Alphonse 
Guerin — (who  to  his  intense  irritation  was  so  often  confounded 
with  another  surgeon,  his  namesake  and  opponent,  Jules 
Guerin) — that  "the  cause  of  purulent  infection  may  perhaps 
be  due  to  the  germs  or  ferments  discovered  by  Pasteur  to 
exist  in  the  air."  Alphonse  Guerin  saw,  in  malarial  fever, 
emanations  of  putrefied  vegetable  matter,  and,  in  purulent 
infection,  animal  emanations,  septic,  and  capable  of  causing 
death. 

"I  thought  more  firmly  than  ever,"  he  declared,  "that 
the  miasms  emanating  from  the  pus  of  the  wounded  were 
the  real  cause  of  this  frightful  disease,  to  which  I  had  the 
sorrow  of  seeing  the  wounded  succumb — whether  their  wounds 
were  dressed  with  charpie  and  cerate  or  with  alcoholized  and 
carbolic  lotions,  either  renewed  several  times  a  day  or  impreg- 
nating linen  bandages  which  remained  applied  to  the  wounds. 
In  my  despair — ever  seeking  some  means  of  preventing  these 
terrible  complications — I  bethought  me  that  the  miasms,  whose 
existence  I  admitted,  because  I  could  not  otherwise  explain 
the  production  of  purulent  infection — and  which  were  only 
known  to  me  by  their  deleterious  influence — might  well  be 
living  corpuscles,  of  the  kind  which  Pasteur  had  seen  in 
atmospheric  air,  and,  from  that  moment,  the  history  of  mias- 
matic poisoning  became  clearer  to  me.  If,"  I  said,  "  miasms 
are  ferments,  I  might  protect  the  wounded  from  their  fatal 
influence  by   filtering  the  air,  as  Pasteur  did.     I   then   con- 


1873—1877  237 

ceived  the  idea  of  cotton-wool  dressings,  and  I  had  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  my  anticipations  realized." 

After  arresting  the  bleeding,  ligaturing  the  blood  vessels 
and  carefully  washing  the  wound  with  carbolic  solution  or 
camphorated  alcohol,  Alphonse  Guerin  applied  thin  layers  of 
cotton  wool,  over  which  he  placed  thicker  masses  of  the  same, 
binding  the  whole  with  strong  bandages  of  new  linen.  This 
dressing  looked  like  a  voluminous  parcel  and  did  not  require 
to  be  removed  for  about  twenty  days.  This  was  done  at 
the  St.  Louis  Hospital  to  the  wounded  of  the  Commune  from 
March  till  June,  1871.  Other  surgeons  learnt  with  amaze- 
ment that,  out  of  thirty-four  patients  treated  in  that  way, 
nineteen  had  survived  operation.  Dr.  Eeclus,  who  could  not 
bring  himself  to  believe  it ,  said  :  ' '  We  had  grown  to  look 
upon  purulent  infection  as  upon  an  inevitable  and  necessary 
disease,  an  almost  Divinely  instituted  consequence  of  any 
important  operation," 

There  is  a  much  greater  danger  than  that  of  atmospheric 
germs,  that  of  the  contagium  germ,  of  which  the  surgeon's 
hands;  sponges  and  tools  are  the  receptacle,  if  minute  and 
infinite  precautions  are  not  taken  against  it.  Such  precau- 
tions were  not  even  thought  of  in  those  days ;  charpie ,  odious 
charpie,  was  left  lying  about  on  hospital  and  ambulance 
tables,  in  contact  with  dirty  vessels.  It  had,  therefore,  been 
sufficient  to  institute  careful  washing  of  the  wounds,  and  es- 
pecially to  reduce  the  frequency  of  dressings,  and  so  diminish 
the  chances  of  infection  to  obtain — thanks  to  a  reform  inspired 
by  Pasteur's  labours — this  precious  and  unexpected  remedy 
to  fatalities  subsequent  to  operations.  In  1873,  Alphonse 
Guerin,  now  a  surgeon  at  the  Hotel  Dieu,  submitted  to  Pasteur 
all  the  facts  which  had  taken  place  at  the  hospital  St.  Louis, 
where  surgery  was  more  "  active,"  he  said,  than  at  the 
Hotel  Dieu ;  he  asked  him  to  come  and  see  his  cotton-wool 
dressings,  and  Pasteur  gladly  hastened  to  accept  the  invita- 
tion. It  was  with  much  pleasure  that  Pasteur  entered  upon 
this  new  period  of  visits  to  hospitals  and  practical  discussions 
with  his  colleagues  of  the  Academie  de  Medecine.  His  joy 
at  the  thought  that  he  had  been  the  means  of  awakening  in 
other  minds  ideas  likely  to  lead  to  the  good  of  humanity  was 
increased  by  the  following  letter  from  Lister,  dated  from 
Edinburgh,  February  13,  1874,  which  is  here  reproduced  in 
the  original — 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

"  My  dear  Sir— allow  me  to  beg  your  acceptance  of  a  pam- 
phlet, which  I  send  by  the  same  post,  containing  an  account 
of  some  investigations  into  the  subject  which  you  have  done 
so  much  to  elucidate,  the  germ  theory  of  fermentative  changes. 
I  flatter  myself  that  you  may  read  with  some  interest 
what  I  have  written  on  the  organism  which  you  were  the  first 
to  describe  in  your  Mdinoire  sur  la  fermentation  appelee 
lactique. 

"I  do  not  know  whether  the  records  of  British  Surgery 
ever  meet  your  eye.  If  so,  you  will  have  seen  from  time  to 
time  notices  of  the  antiseptic  system  of  treatment,  which  I 
have  been  labouring  for  the  last  nine  years  to  bring  to  per- 
fection. 

"  Allow  me  to  take  this  opportunity  to  tender  you  my  most 
cordial  thanks  for  having,  by  your  brilliant  researches,  de- 
monstrated to  me  the  truth  of  the  germ  theory  of  putrefaction, 
and  thus  furnished  me  with  the  principle  upon  which  alone 
the  antiseptic  system  can  be  carried  out.  Should  you  at  any 
time  visit  Edinburgh,  it  would,  I  believe,  give  you  sincere 
gratification  to  see  at  our  hospital  how  largely  mankind  is  being 
benefited  by  your  labours. 

"  I  need  hardly  add  that  it  would  afford  me  the  highest 
gratification  to  show  you  how  greatly  surgery  is  indebted  to 
you. 

' '  Forgive  the  freedom  with  which  a  common  love  of  science 
inspires  me,  and 

"  Believe  me,  with  profound  respecife, 

"  Yours  very  sincerely, 

"  Joseph  Lister." 

In  Lister's  wards,  the  instruments,  sponges  and  other 
articles  used  for  dressings  were  first  of  all  purified  in  a  strong 
solution  of  carbolic  acid.  The  same  precautions  were  taken 
for  the  hands  of  the  surgeon  and  of  his  assistants.  During  the 
whole  course  of  each  operation ,  a  vaporizer  of  carbolic  solution 
created  around  the  wound  an  antiseptic  atmosphere ;  after  it 
was  over,  the  wound  was  again  washed  with  the  carbolic 
solution.  Special  articles  were  used  for  dressing  :  a  sort 
of  gauze,  similar  to  tarlatan  and  impregnated  with  a  mixture 
of  resin,  paraffin  and  carbolic,  maintained  an  antiseptic  atmo- 
sphere around  the  wound.  Such  was  -in  its  main  lines — 
Lister's  method. 


1873—1877  239 

A  medical  student,  M.  Just  Lucas-Championniere — who 
later  on  became  an  exponent  in  France  of  this  method,  and 
who  described  it  in  a  valuable  treatise  published  in  1876 — had 
already  in  1869,  after  a  journey  to  Glasgow,  stated  in  the 
Journal  de  midecine  et  de  chirurgie  pratique  what  were  those 
first  principles  of  defence  against  gangrene — "extreme  and 
minute  care  in  the  dressing  of  wounds."  But  his  isolated  voice 
was  not  heard  ;  neither  was  any  notice  taken  of  a  celebrated  lec- 
ture given  by  Lister  at  the  beginning  of  1870  on  the  penetrating 
of  germs  into  a  purulent  centre  and  on  the  utility  of  antisepsis 
applied  to  clinical  practice.  A  few  months  before  the  war, 
Tyndall,  the  great  English  physicist,  alluded  to  this  lecture  in 
an  article  entitled  "  Dusts  and  Diseases,"  which  was  published 
by  the  Revue  des  cours  scientiflques .  But  the  heads  of  the  pro- 
fession in  France  had  at  that  time  absolute  confidence  in  them- 
selves, and  nobody  took  any  interest  in  the  rumour  of  success 
attained  by  the  antiseptic  method.  Yet,  between  1867  and 
1869,  thirty-four  of  Lister's  patients  out  of  forty  had  survived 
after  amputation.  It  is  impossible  on  reading  of  this  not  to  feel 
an  immense  sadness  at  the  thought  of  the  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  young  men  who  perished  in  ambulances  and  hospi- 
tals during  the  fatal  year,  and  who  might  have  been  saved  by 
Lister's  method.  In  his  own  country.  Lister  had  also  been 
violently  criticized.  "People  turned  into  ridicule  Lister's 
minute  precautions  in  the  dressing  of  wounds,"  writes  a  com- 
petent judge.  Dr.  Auguste  Eeaudin,  a  professor  at  the  Geneva 
Faculty  of  Medicine,  "  and  those  who  lost  nearly  all  their 
patients  by  poulticing  them  had  nothing  but  sarcasms  for  the 
man  who  was  so  infinitely  superior  to  them."  Lister,  with 
his  calm  courage  and  smiling  kindliness,  let  people  talk,  and 
endeavoured  year  by  year  to  perfect  his  method,  testing  it 
constantly  and  improving  it  in  detail.  No  one,  however 
sceptical,  whom  he  invited  to  look  at  his  results,  could  preserve 
his  scepticism  in  the  face  of  such  marked  success. 

Some  of  his  opponents  thought  to  attack  him  on  another 
point  by  denying  him  the  priority  of  the  use  of  carbolic  acid. 
Lister  never  claimed  that  priority,  but  his  enemies  took 
pleasure  in  recalling  that  Jules  Lemaire,  in  1860,  had  proposed 
the  use  of  weak  carbolic  solution  for  the  treatment  of  open 
wounds,  and  that  the  same  had  been  prescribed  by  Dr.  Declat 
in  1861,  and  also  by  Maisonneuve,  Demarquay  and  others. 
The  fact  that  should  have  been  proclaimed  was  that  Lister 


240  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

had  created  a  surgical  method  which  was  in  itself  an  immense 
and  beneficial  progress ;  and  Lister  took  pleasure  in  declaring 
that  he  owed  to  Pasteur  the  principles  which  had  guided  him. 

At  the  time  when  Pasteur  received  the  letter  above  quoted, 
which  gave  him  deep  gratification,  people  in  France  w^ere  so 
far  from  all  that  concerned  antisepsis  and  asepsis,  that,  when 
he  advised  surgeons  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine  to  put 
their  instruments  through  a  flame  before  using  them,  they  did 
not  understand  what  he  meant ,  and  he  had  to  explain— 

"  I  mean  that  surgical  instruments  should  merely  be  put 
through  a  flame,  not  really  heated,  and  for  this  reason  :  if  a 
sound  were  examined  with  a  microscope,  it  would  be  seen  that 
its  surface  presents  grooves  where  dusts  are  harboured,  which 
cannot  be  completely  removed  even  by  the  most  careful 
cleansing.  Fire  entirely  destroys  those  organic  dusts ;  in  my 
laboratory,  where  I  am  surrounded  by  dust  of  all  kinds,  I 
never  make  use  of  an  instrument  without  previously  putting 
it  through  a  flame." 

Pasteur  was  ever  ready  to  help  others,  giving  them  willing 
advice  or  information.  In  November,  1874,  when  visiting 
the  Hotel  Dieu  with  Messrs.  Larrey  and  Gosselin,  he  had 
occasion  to  notice  that  a  certain  cotton-wool  dressing  had  been 
very  badly  done  by  a  student  in  one  of  Guerin's  wards.  A 
wound  on  the  dirty  hand  of  a  labouring  man  had  been 
bandaged  with  cotton  wool  without  having  been  washed  in 
any  way.  When  the  bandaging  was  removed  in  the  presence 
of  Guerin,  the  pus  exhaled  a  repugnant  odour,  and  was  found 
to  swarm  with  vibriones.  Pasteur  in  a  sitting  of  the  Academic 
des  Sciences,  entered  into  details  as  to  the  precautions  which 
are  necessary  to  get  rid  of  the  germs  originally  present  on 
the  surface  of  the  wound  or  of  the  cotton  wool ;  he  declared 
that  the  layers  of  cotton  wool  should  be  heated  to  a  very  high 
temperature.  He  also  suggested  the  following  experiment  : 
' '  In  order  to  demonstrate  the  evil  influence  of  ferments  and 
proto-organisms  in  the  suppuration  of  wounds,  I  would  make 
two  identical  wounds  on  the  two  symmetrical  limbs  of  an 
animal  under  chloroform ;  on  one  of  those  wounds  I  would 
apply  a  cotton-wool  dressing  with  every  possible  precaution  ; 
on  the  other,  on  the  contrary,  I  would  cultivate,  so  to  speak, 
micro-organisms  abstracted  from  a  strange  sore,  and  offering, 
more  or  less,  a  septic  character. 

"  Finally,  I  should  like  to  cut  open  a  wound  on  an  animal 


1873—1877  241 

under  chloroform  in  a  very  carefully  selected  part  of  the  body 
— for  the  experiment  would  be  a  very  delicate  one — and  in 
absolutely  pure  air,  that  is,  air  absolutely  devoid  of  any  kind 
of  germs,  afterwards  maintaining  a  pure  atmosphere  around 
the  wound,  and  having  recourse  to  no  dressing  whatever.  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  perfect  healing  would  ensue  under 
such  conditions,  for  there  would  be  nothing  to  hinder  the  work 
of  repair  and  reorganization  which  must  be  accomplished  on 
the  surface  of  a  wound  if  it  is  to  heal." 

He  explained  in  that  way  the  advantage  accruing  to 
hygiene,  in  hospitals  and  elsewhere,  from  infinite  precautions 
of  cleanliness  and  the  destroying  of  infectious  germs.  Himself 
a  great  investigator  of  new  ideas,  he  intended  to  compel  his 
colleagues  at  the  Academie  de  Medecine  to  include  the  patho- 
genic share  of  the  infinitesimally  small  among  matters  de- 
manding the  attention  of  medicine  and  surgery.  The  struggle 
was  a  long,  unceasing  and  painful  one.  In  February,  1875, 
his  presence  gave  rise  to  a  discussion  on  ferments,  which 
lasted  until  the  end  of  March.  In  the  course  of  this  discus- 
sion he  recalled  the  experiments  he  had  made  fifteen  years 
before,  describing  how — in  a  liquid  composed  of  mineral 
elements,  apart  from  the  contact  of  atmospheric  air  and 
previously  raised  to  ebullition — vibriones  could  be  sown  and 
subsequently  seen  to  flourish  and  multiply,  offering  the  sight 
of  those  two  important  phenomena  :  life  without  air,  and 
fermentation. 

"They  are  far  behind  us  now,"  he  said;  "they  are  now 
relegated  to  the  rank  of  chimeras,  those  theories  of  fermenta- 
tion imagined  by  Berzelius,  Mitscherlich ,  and  Liebig,  and  re- 
edited  with  an  accompaniment  of  new  hypotheses  by  Messrs. 
Pouchet,  Fremy,  Trecul,  and  Bechamp.  Who  would  now 
dare  to  affirm  that  fermentations  are  contact  phenomena, 
phenomena  of  motion ,  communicated  by  an  altering  albuminoid 
matter,  or  phenomena  produced  by  semi-organized  materia, 
transforming  themselves  into  this  or  into  that?  All  those 
creations  of  fancy  fall  to  pieces  before  this  simple  and  decisive 
experiment." 

Pasteur  ended  up  his  speech  by  an  unexpected  attack  on 
the  pompous  etiquette  of  the  Academy's  usual  proceedings, 
urgmg  his  colleagues  to  remain  within  the  bounds  of  a 
scientific  discussion  instead  of  making  flowery  speeches.  He 
was  much  applauded,  and  his  exhortation  taken  in  good  part. 

R 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

His  colleagues  also  probably  sympathized  with  his  irritation 
in  hearing  a  member  of  the  assembly,  M.  Poggiale,  formerly 
apothecary  in  chief  to  the  Val  de  Grace,  give  a  somewhat 
sceptical  dissertation  on  such  a  subject  as  spontaneous  genera- 
tion, saying  disdainfully — 

"  M.  Pasteur  has  told  us  that  he  had  looked  for  spontaneous 
generation  for  twenty  years  without  finding  it ;  he  will  long 
continue  to  look  for  it,  and,  in  spite  of  his  courage,  perse- 
verance and  sagacity,  I  doubt  whether  he  ever  will  find  it. 
It  is  almost  an  unsolvable  question.  However  those  who,  like 
me,  have  no  fixed  opinion  on  the  question  of  spontaneous 
generation  reserve  the  right  of  verifying,  of  sifting  and  of 
disputing  new  facts,  as  they  appear,  one  by  one  and  wherever 
they  are  produced." 

"  What  1  "  cried  Pasteur,  wrathful  w^henever  those  great 
questions  were  thoughtlessly  tackled,  "  what !  I  have  been  for 
twenty  years  engaged  in  one  subject  and  I  am  not  to  have  an 
opinion!  and  the  right  of  verifying,  sifting,  and  disputing  the 
facts  is  to  belong  to  him  who  does  nothing  to  become  en- 
lightened but  merely  to  read  our  works  more  or  less  attentively, 
his  feet  on  his  study  fender !  !  I 

* '  You  have  no  opinion  on  spontaneous  generation ,  my  dear 
colleague ;  I  can  well  believe  that,  while  regretting  it.  I  am 
not  speaking,  of  course,  of  those  sentimental  opinions  that 
everybody  has,  more  or  less,  in  questions  of  this  nature,  for 
in  this  assembly  we  do  not  go  in  for  sentiment.  You  say  that, 
in  the  present  state  of  science,  it  is  wiser  to  have  no  opinion  : 
well,  I  have  an  opinion,  not  a  sentimental  one,  but  a  rational 
one,  having  acquired  a  right  to  it  by  twenty  years  of  assiduous 
labour,  and  it  would  be  wise  in  every  impartial  mind  to  share 
it.  My  opinion — nay,  more,  my  conviction — is  that,  in  the 
present  state  of  science,  as  you  rightly  say,  spontaneous  gene- 
ration is  a  chimera;  and  it  would  be  impossible  for  you  to 
contradict  me,  for  my  experiments  all  stand  forth  to  prove 
that  spontaneous  generation  is  a  chimera.  What  is  then 
your  judgment  on  my  experiments?  Have  I  not  a  hundred 
times  placed  organic  matter  in  contact  with  pure  air  in  the 
best  conditions  for  it  to  produce  life  spontaneously?  Have 
I  not  practised  on  those  organic  materia  which  are  most 
favourable,  according  to  all  accounts,  to  the  genesis  of  spon- 
taneity, such  as  blood,  urine,  and  grape  juice?  How  is  it 
that  you  do  not  see  the  essential  difference  between  my  op- 


1873—1877  243 

ponents  and  myself?  Not  only  have  I  contradicted,  proof  in 
hand,  every  one  of  their  assertions,  while  they  have  never  dared 
to  seriously  contradict  one  of  mine,  but,  for  them,  every  cause 
of  error  benefits  their  opinion.  For  me,  affirming  as  I  do 
that  there  are  no  spontaneous  fermentations,  I  am  bound 
to  eliminate  every  cause  of  error,  every  perturbing  influence, 
I  can  maintain  my  results  only  by  means  of  most  irreproach- 
able experiments;  their  opinions,  on  the  contrary,  profit  by 
every  insufficient  experiment  and  that  is  where  they  find  their 
support." 

Pasteur  having  been  abruptly  addressed  by  a  colleague, 
who  remarked  that  there  were  yet  many  unexplained  facts  in 
connection  with  fermentation,  he  answered  by  thus  apostro- 
phizing his  adversaries — 

"  What  is  then  your  idea  of  the  progress  of  Science? 
Science  advances  one  step,  then  another,  and  then  draws  back 
and  meditates  before  taking  a  third.  Does  the  impossibility 
of  taking  that  last  step  suppress  the  success  acquired  by  the 
two  others  ?  Would  you  say  to  an  infant  who  hesitated  before 
a  third  step,  having  ventured  on  two  previous  ones  :  '  Thy 
former  efforts  are  of  no  avail ;  never  shalt  thou  walk '  ? 

* '  You  wish  to  upset  what  you  call  my  theory ,  apparently  in 
order  to  defend  another  ;  allow  me  to  tell  you  by  what  signs  these 
theories  are  recognized  :  the  characteristic  of  erroneous  theories 
is  the  impossibility  of  ever  foreseeing  new  facts  ;  whenever  such 
a  fact  is  discovered,  those  theories  have  to  be  grafted  with 
further  hypotheses  in  order  to  account  for  them.  True 
theories,  on  the  contrary,  are  the  expression  of  actual  facts 
and  are  characterized  by  being  able  to  predict  new  facts, 
a  natural  consequence  of  those  already  known.  In  a  word, 
the  characteristic  of  a  true  theory  is  its  fruitfulness." 

"Science,"  said  he  again  at  the  following  sitting  of  the 
Academy,  "should  not  concern  itself  in  any  way  with  the 
philosophical  consequences  of  its  discoveries.  If  through  the 
development  of  my  experimental  studies  I  come  to  demonstrate 
that  matter  can  organize  itself  of  its  own  accord  into  a  cell 
or  into  a  living  being,  I  would  come  here  to  proclaim  it  with 
the  legitimate  pride  of  an  inventor  conscious  of  having  made 
a  great  discovery,  and  I  would  add,  if  provoked  to  do  so,  '  All 
the  worse  for  those  whose  doctrines  or  systems  do  not  fit  in 
with  the  truth  of  the  natural  facts.' 

"  It  was  with  similar  pride  that  I  defied  my  opponents  to 

B  2 


244  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

contradict  me  when  I  said,  '  In  the  present  state  of  science 
the  doctrine  of  sponl:aneous  generation  is  a  chimera.'  And 
I  add,  with  similar  independence,  '  All  the  worse  for  those 
whose  philosophical  or  political  ideas  are  hindered  by  my 
studies.' 

"  This  is  not  to  be  taken  to  mean  that,  in  my  beliefs  and  in 
the  conduct  of  my  life ,  I  only  take  account  of  acquired  science  : 
if  I  would,  I  could  not  do  so,  for  I  should  then  have  to  strip 
myself  of  a  part  of  myself.  There  are  two  men  in  each  one 
of  us  :  the  scientist,  he  who  starts  with  a  clear  field  and 
desires  to  rise  to  the  knowledge  of  Nature  through  observa- 
tion, experimentation  and  reasoning,  and  the  man  of  senti- 
ment, the  man  of  belief,  the  man  who  mourns  his  dead 
children,  and  who  cannot,  alas,  prove  that  he  will  see  them 
again,  but  who  believes  that  he  will,  and  lives  in  that  hope, 
the  man  who  will  not  die  like  a  vibrio,  but  who  feels  that 
the  force  that  is  within  him  cannot  die.  The  two  domains  are 
distinct,  and  woe  to  him  who  tries  to  let  them  tresspass  on  each 
other  in  the  so  imperfect  state  of  human  knowledge." 

And  that  separation,  as  he  understood  it,  caused  in  him 
none  of  those  conflicts  which  often  determine  a  crisis  in  a 
human  soul.  As  a  scientist,  he  claimed  absolute  liberty  of 
research;  he  considered,  with  Claude  Bernard  and  Littre,  that 
it  was  a  mistaken  waste  of  time  to  endeavour  to  penetrate 
primary  causes;  "we  can  only  note  correlations,"  he  said. 
But,  with  the  spiritual  sentiment  which  caused  him  to  claim 
for  the  inner  moral  life  the  same  liberty  as  for  scientific  re- 
search, he  could  not  understand  certain  givers  of  easy  explana- 
tions who  affirm  that  matter  has  organized  itself,  and  who, 
considering  as  perfectly  simple  the  spectacle  of  the  Universe 
of  which  Earth  is  but  an  infinitesimal  part,  are  in  no  wise 
moved  by  the  Infinite  Power  who  created  the  w^orlds.  With 
his  whole  heart  he  proclaimed  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

His  mode  of  looking  upon  human  life,  in  spite  of  sorrows, 
of  struggles,  of  heavy  burdens,  had  in  it  a  strong  element  of 
consolation:  "No  effort  is  wasted,"  he  said,  giving  thus  a 
most  virile  lesson  of  philosophy  to  those  inferior  minds  who 
only  see  immediate  results  in  the  work  they  undertake  and  are 
discouraged  by  the  first  disappointment.  In  his  respect  for 
the  great  phenomenon  of  Conscience,  by  which  almost  all 
men,  enveloped  as  they  are  in  the  mystery  of  the  Universe, 
have  the  prescience  of  an  Ideal,  of  a  God,  he  considered  that 


1873—1877  245 

the  greatness  of  human  actions  can  be  measured  by  the  inspi- 
rations which  give  them  birth."  He  was  convinced  that  there 
are  no  vain  prayers.  If  all  is  simple  to  the  simple,  all  is 
great  to  the  great;  it  was  through  "the  Divine  regions  of 
Knowledge  and  of  Light "  that  he  had  visions  of  those  who  are 
no  more. 

It  was  very  seldom  that  he  spoke  of  such  things,  though 
he  was  sometimes  induced  to  do  so  in  the  course  of  a  dis- 
cussion so  as  to  manifest  his  repugnance  for  vainglorious 
negations  and  barren  irony ;  sometimes  too  he  would  enter  into 
such  feelings  when  speaking  to  an  assembly  of  young  men. 

Those  discussions  at  the  Academy  of  Medicine  had  the 
advantage  of  inciting  medical  men  to  the  research  of  the 
infinitesimally  small,  described  by  the  Annual  Secretary 
Roger  as  ' '  those  subtle  artisans  of  many  disorders  in  the 
living  economy." 

M.  Eoger,  at  the  end  of  a  brief  account  of  his  colleague's 
work,  wrote,  "  To  the  signal  services  rendered  by  M.  Pasteur 
to  science  and  to  our  country,  it  was  but  fair  that  a  signal  re- 
compense should  be  given  :  the  National  Assembly  has  under- 
taken that  care." 

That  recompense,  voted  a  few  months  previously,  was  the 
third  national  recompense  accorded  to  French  scientists  since 
the  beginning  of  the  century.  In  1837,  Arago,  before  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  Gay  Lussac,  before  the  Chamber 
of  Peers,  had  otained  a  glorious  recognition  of  the  services 
rendered  by  Daguerre  and  Niepce.  In  1845  another  national 
recompense  was  accorded,  to  M.  Vicat,  the  engineer.  In  1874, 
Paul  Bert,  a  member  of  the  National  Assembly,  gladly  re- 
porting on  the  projected  law  tending  to  offer  a  national 
recompense  to  Pasteur,  wrote  quoting  those  precedents  : 

"  Such  an  assurance  of  gratitude,  given  by  a  nation  to  men 
who  have  made  it  richer  and  more  illustrious,  honours  it  at 
least  as  much  as  it  does  them.  ..."  Paul  Bert  continued 
by  enumerating  Pasteur's  discoveries,  and  spoke  of  the  millions 
Pasteur  had  assured  to  France,  "without  retaining  the  least 
share  of  them  for  himself."  In  sericiculture  alone,  the  losses 
in  twenty  years,  before  Pasteur's  interference,  rose  to  1,500 
milhons  of  francs. 

"  M.  Pasteur's  discoveries,  gentlemen,"  concluded  Paul 
Bert,  "  after  throwing  a  new  light  on  the  obscure  question  of 
fermentations  and  of  the  mode  of  appearance  of  microscopic 


246  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

beings,  have  revolutionized  certain  branches  of  industry,  of 
agriculture,  and  of  pathology.  One  is  struck  with  admiration 
when  seeing  that  so  many,  and  such  divers  results,  proceed — 
through  an  unbroken  chain  of  facts,  nothing  being  left  to 
hypothesis — from  theoretical  studies  on  the  manner  in  which 
tartaric  acid  deviates  polarized  light.  Never  was  the  famous 
saying,  'Genius  consists  in  sufficient  patience,'  more  amply 
justified.  The  Government  now  proposes  that  you  should 
honour  this  admirable  combination  of  theoretical  and  practical 
study  by  a  national  recompense ;  your  Commission  unani- 
mously approves  of  this  proposition. 

' '  The  suggested  recompense  consists  in  a  life  annuity  of 
12,000  francs,  which  is  the  approximate  amount  of  the  salary 
of  the  Sorbonne  professorship,  which  M.  Pasteur's  ill  health 
has  compelled  him  to  give  up.  It  is  indeed  small  when  com- 
pared with  the  value  of  the  services  rendered,  and  your 
Commission  much  regrets  that  the  state  of  our  finances  does 
not  allow  us  to  increase  that  amount.  But  the  Commission 
agrees  with  its  learned  chairman  (M.  Marfes)  '  that  the  eco- 
nomic and  hygienic  results  of  M.  Pasteur's  discoveries  will 
presently  become  so  considerable  that  the  French  nation  will 
desire  to  increase  later  on  its  testimony  of  gratitude  towards 
him  and  towards  Science,  of  which  he  is  one  of  the  most 
glorious  representatives.'  " 

Half  the  amount  of  the  annuity  was  to  revert  to  Pasteur's 
widow.     The  Bill  was  passed  by  532  votes  against  24. 

"  Where  is  the  government  which  has  secured  such  a 
majority?"  wrote  Pasteur's  old  friend  Chappuis,  now  Kector 
of  the  Grenoble  Academy.  The  value  of  the  recompense 
was  certainly  much  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  the  Assembly, 
divided  upon  so  many  subjects,  had  been  almost  unanimous 
in  its  feeling  of  gratitude  towards  him  who  had  laboured  so 
hard  for  Science,  for  the  country  and  for  Humanity. 

"Bravo,  my  dear  Pasteur:  I  am  glad  for  you  and  for 
myself,  and  proud  for  us  all.  Your  devoted  friend,  Sainte 
Claire  Deville." 

"  You  are  going  to  be  a  happy  scientist,"  wrote  M.  Duclaux, 
"  for  you  can  already  see,  and  you  will  see  more  and  more,  the 
triumph  of  your  doctrines  and  of  your  discoveries." 

Those  who  imagined  that  this  national  recompense  was  the 
close  of  a  great  chapter,  perhaps  even  the  last  chapter  of  the 
book  of  his  life,  gave  him,  in  their  well-meaning  ignorance. 


1873—1877  247 

some  advice  which  highly  irritated  him  :  they  advised  him  to 
rest.  It  is  true  that  his  cerebral  hasmorrhage  had  left  him 
with  a  certain  degree  of  lameness  and  a  slight  stiffness  of  the 
left  hand,  those  external  signs  reminding  him  only  too  well 
of  the  threatening  possibility  of  another  stroke  ;  but  his  mighty 
soul  was  more  than  ever  powerful  to  master  his  infirm  body. 
It  was  therefore  evident  that  Nisard,  usually  very  subtle  in  his 
insight  into  character,  did  not  thoroughly  understand  Pasteur 
when  he  wrote  to  him,  "Now,  dear  friend,  you  must  give  up 
your  energies  to  living  for  your  family,  for  all  those  who  love 
you,  and  a  little  too  for  yourself." 

In  spite  of  his  deep,  even  passionate  tenderness  for  his 
family,  Pasteur  had  other  desires  than  to  limit  his  life  to  such 
a  narrow  circle.  Every  man  who  knows  he  has  a  mission  to 
fulfil  feels  that  there  are  rays  of  a  light  purer  and  more 
exalted  than  that  proceeding  from  the  hearth.  As  to  the 
suggestion  that  Pasteur  should  take  care  of  his  own  health, 
it  was  as  useless  as  it  would  be  to  advise  certain  men  to  take 
care  of  that  of  others. 

Dr.  Andral  had  vainly  said  and  written  that  he  should  for- 
bid Pasteur  any  assiduous  labour.  Pasteur  considered  that 
not  to  work  was  to  lose  the  object  of  living  at  all.  If,  however, 
a  certain  equilibrium  was  established  between  the  anxious 
solicitude  of  friends,  the  prohibitions  of  medical  advisers  and 
the  great  amount  of  work  which  Pasteur  insisted  on  doing,  it 
was  owing  to  her  who  with  a  discreet  activity  watched  in 
silence  to  see  that  nothing  outside  his  work  should  complicate 
Pasteur's  life,  herself  his  most  precious  collaborator,  the  con- 
fidante of  every  experiment. 

Everything  was  subordinate  to  the  laboratory ;  Pasteur 
never  accepted  an  invitation  to  those  large  social  gatherings 
which  are  a  tax  laid  by  those  who  have  nothing  to  do  on  the 
time  of  those  who  are  busy,  especially  if  they  be  celebrated. 
Pasteur's  name,  known  throughout  the  world,  was  never  men- 
tioned in  fashionable  journals ;  he  did  not  even  go  to  theatres. 
In  the  evening,  after  dinner,  he  usually  perambulated  the 
hall  and  corridor  of  his  rooms  at  the  Ecole  Normale,  cogitating 
over  various  details  of  his  work.  At  ten  o'clock,  he  went  to 
bed,  and  at  eight  the  next  morning,  whether  he  had  had  a 
good  night  or  a  bad  one,  he  resumed  his  work  in  the  laboratory. 

That  regular  life,  preserving  its  even  tenor  through  so  many 
polemics    and    discussions,    was    momentarily    perturbed    by 


248  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

politics  in  January,  1876.  Pasteur,  who,  in  his  extra- 
ordinary, ahnost  disconcerting  modesty,  believed  that  a  medi- 
cal diploma  would  have  facilitated  his  scientific  revolution, 
imagined — after  the  pressing  overtures  made  to  him  by  some 
of  his  proud  compatriots — that  he  would  be  able  to  serve  more 
usefully  the  cause  of  higher  education  if  he  were  to  obtain  a 
seat  at  the  Senate. 

He  addressed  from  Paris  a  letter  to  the  senatorial  electors 
of  the  department  of  Jura.  "  I  am  not  a  political  man,"  he 
said ,  "  I  am  bound  to  no  party ;  not  having  studied  politics  I 
am  ignorant  of  many  things,  but  I  do  know  this,  that  I  love 
my  country  and  have  served  her  with  all  my  strength."  Like 
many  good  citizens,  he  thought  that  a  renewal  of  the  national 
grandeur  and  prosperity  might  be  sought  in  a  serious  experi- 
mental trial  of  the  Kepublic.  If  honoured  with  the  suffrages 
of  his  countrymen ,  he  would  ' '  represent  in  the  Senate ,  Science 
in  all  its  purity,  dignity  and  independence."  Two  Jura 
newspapers,  of  different  opinions,  agreed  in  regretting  that 
Pasteur  should  leave  "  the  peaceful  altitudes  of  science," 
and  come  down  into  the  Jura  to  solicit  the  electors'  suffrages. 

In  his  answers  to  such  articles,  letters  dictated  to  his  son — 
who  acted  as  his  secretary  during  that  electoral  campaign  and 
accompanied  him  to  Lons-le-Saulnier,  where  they  spent  a 
week,  published  addresses,  posters,  etc. — Pasteur  invoked  the 
following  motto,  "Science  et  Patrie."  Why  had  France  been 
victorious  in  1792?  "  Because  Science  had  given  to  our 
fathers  the  material  means  of  fighting."  And  he  recalled  the 
names  of  Monge,  of  Carnot,  of  Fourcroy,  of  Guy  ton  de  Mor- 
veau,  of  Berthollet,  that  concourse  of  men  of  science,  thanks 
to  whom  it  had  been  possible — during  that  grandiose  epoch — 
to  hasten  the  working  of  steel  and  the  preparation  of  leather 
for  soldiers'  boots,  and  to  find  means  of  extracting  saltpetre 
for  gunpowder  from  plaster  rubbish,  of  making  use  of  recon- 
noitring balloons  and  of  perfecting  telegraphy. 

The  senatorial  electors  numbered  650.  Jules  Grevy  came 
to  Lons-le-Saulnier  to  support  the  candidature  of  MM.  Tami- 
sier  and  Thurel.  In  a  meeting  which  took  place  the  day  before 
the  election  he  said,  "You  will  give  them  your  suffrage  to- 
morrow, and  in  so  doing  you  will  have  deserved  well  of  the 
Eepublic  and  of  France."  He  mentioned,  incidentally,  that 
"  M.  Pasteur's  character  and  scientific  work  entitle  him  to 
universal  respect  and  esteem  ;  but  Science  has  its  natural  place 


1873—1877  249 

at  the  Institute,"  be  added,  insisting  on  the  Senate's  political 
attributes.  Grevy's  intervention  in  favour  of  his  two  candi- 
dates was  decisive.  M.  Tamisier  obtained  446  votes,  M. 
Thurel  445,  General  Picard  113,  M.  Besson,  a  monarchist, 
153,  Pasteur  62  only. 

He  had  received  on  that  very  morning  a  letter  from  his 
daughter,  wishing  him  a  failure — a  bright,  girlish  letter,  frankly 
expressing  the  opinion  that  her  father  could  be  most  useful  to 
his  country  by  confining  himself  to  laboratory  work,  and  that 
politics  would  necessarily  hinder  such  work. 

It  was  easy  to  be  absolutely  frank  with  Pasteur,  who 
willingly  accepted  every  truthful  statement.  No  man  was 
ever  more  beloved,  more  admired  and  less  flattered  in  his  own 
home  than  he  was. 

"  What  a  wise  judge  you  are,  my  dearest  girl !  "  answered 
Pasteur  the  same  evening;  "you  are  perfectly  right.  But  I 
am  not  sorry  to  have  seen  all  this,  and  that  your  brother  should 
have  seen  it;  all  knowledge  is  useful." 

That  little  incursion  into  the  domain  of  politics  was  ren- 
dered insignificant  in  Pasteur's  life  by  the  fact  that  his  long- 
desired  object  was  almost  reached.  Three  months  later,  at  the 
distribution  of  prizes'  of  the  Goncours  General,  the  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction  pronounced  a  speech,  of  which  Pasteur  pre- 
served the  text,  underlining  with  his  own  hand  the  following 
passages  :  "  Soon,  I  hope,  we  shall  see  the  Schools  of  Medicine 
and  of  Pharmacy  reconstructed ;  the  College  de  France  pro- 
vided with  new  laboratories ;  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  trans- 
ferred and  enlarged,  and  the  ancient  Sorbonne  itself  restored 
and  extended." 

And  while  the  Minister  spoke  of  ' '  those  higher  studies  of 
Philosophy,  of  History,  of  disinterested  Science  which  are  the 
glory  of  a  nation  and  an  honour  to  the  human  mind  .  .  .  which 
must  retain  the  first  rank  to  shed  their  serene  light  over  inferior 
studies,  and  to  remind  men  of  the  true  goal  and  the  true 
grandeur  of  human  intelligence.  ..."  Pasteur  could  say  to 
himself  that  the  great  cause  which  he  had  pleaded  since  he 
was  made  Dean  of  Faculty  at  Lille  in  1854,  which  he  had  sup- 
ported in  1868  and  again  on  the  morrow^  of  the  war,  was  at  last 
about  to  be  won  in  1876. 

He  had  a  patriotic  treat  during  the  summer  holidays  of  that 
same  year.  A  great  international  congress  of  sericiculture  was 
gathered  at  Milan;  there  were  delegates  from  Kussia,  Austria, 


250  THE^LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Italy  and  France,  and  Pasteur  represented  France.  He  was 
accompanied  by  his  former  pupils,  his  associates  in  his  silk- 
worm studies,  Duclaux  and  Eaulin,  both  of  whom  had  become 
professors  at  the  Lyons  Faculty  of  Sciences,  and  Maillot,  who 
was  then  manager  of  the  silkworm  establishment  of  Mont- 
pellier.  The  members  of  the  Congress  had  been  previously 
informed  of  the  programme  of  questions,  and  each  intending 
speaker  was  armed  with  facts  and  observations.  The  open 
discussions  allowed  Duclaux,  Eaulin  and  Maillot  to  demon- 
strate the  strictness  and  perfection  of  the  experimental  method 
which  they  had  learned  from  their  master  and  which  they  were 
teaching  in  their  turn. 

Excursions  formed  a  delightful  interlude ;  one  on  the  lake  of 
Como  was  an  enchantment.  Then  the  French  delegates  were 
offered  the  pleasant  surprise  of  a  visit  to  an  immense  seeding 
establishment  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Milan,  which  had  been 
named  after  Pasteur.  We  have  an  account  of  this  visit  in  a 
letter  to  J.  B.  Dumas  (September  17). 

' '  My  dear  Master  ...  I  very  much  regret  that  you  are  not 
here  :  you  would  have  shared  my  satisfaction.  I  am  dating 
my  letter  from  Milan,  but  in  reality,  the  congress  being  ended, 
we  are  staying  at  Signer  Susani's  country  house  for  a  few  days. 
Here,  from  July  4,  sixty  or  seventy  women  are  busy  for  ten 
hours  every  day  with  microscopic  examinations  of  absolute 
accuracy.  I  never  saw  a  better  arranged  establishment. 
400,000  moth  cells  are  put  under  the  microscope  every  day. 
The  order  and  cleanliness  are  admirable ;  any  error  is  made 
impossible  by  the  organization  of  a  second  test  following  the 
first. 

"  I  felt,  in  seeing  my  name  in  large  letters  on  the  fagade  of 
that  splendid  establishment,  a  joy  which  compensates  for  much 
of  the  frivolous  opposition  I  have  encountered  from  some  of 
my  countrymen  these  last  few  years ;  it  is  a  spontaneous 
homage  from  the  proprietor  to  my  studies.  Many  sericicultors 
do  their  seeding  themselves,  by  selection,  or  have  it  done  by 
competent  workers  accustomed  to  the  operation.  The  harvest 
from  that  excellent  seed  depends  on  the  climate  only ;  in  a 
moderately  favourable  season  the  production  often  reaches  fifty 
or  seventy  kilogrammes  per  ounce  of  twenty-five  grammes." 

Signer  Susani  was  looking  forward  to  producing  for  that  one 
year  30,000  ounces  of  seed.  In  the  presence  of  the  prodigious 
activity  of  this  veritable  factory- -where,  besides  the  microscope 


1873—1877  251 

women,  more  than  one  hundred  persons  were  occupied  in  various 
ways,  washing  the  mortars  with  which  the  moths  are  pounded 
before  being  put  under  the  microscopes,  cleansing  the  shdes, 
etc. ;  in  fact,  doing  those  various  dehcate  but  simple  operations 
which  had  formerly  been  pronounced  to  be  impracticable — 
Pasteur's  thoughts  went  back  to  his  experiments  in  the  Pont- 
Gisquet  greenhouse,  to  the  modest  beginnings  of  his  process, 
now  so  magnificently  applied  in  Italy,  A  month  before  this, 
J.  B.  Dumas,  presiding  at  a  scientific  meeting  at  Clermont 
Ferrandj  had  said — 

"The  future  belongs  to  Science;  woe  to  the  nations  who 
close  their  eyes  to  this  fact.  .  .  .  Let  us  call  to  our  aid  on  this 
neutral  and  pacific  ground  of  Natural  Philosophy,  where  defeats 
cost  neither  blood  nor  tears,  those  hearts  which  are  moved  by 
their  country's  grandeur ;  it  is  by  the  exaltation  of  science  that 
France  will  recover  her  prestige." 

Those  same  ideas  were  expressed  in  a  toast  given  by  Pasteur 
in  the  name  of  France  at  a  farewell  banquet,  when  the  300 
members  of  the  Sericiculture  Congress  were  present. 

' '  Gentlemen ,  I  propose  a  toast — To  the  peaceful  strife  of 
Science.  It  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  the  honour  of  being 
present  on  foreign  soil  at  an  international  congress ;  I  ask  my- 
self what  are  the  impressions  produced  in  me,  besides  these 
courteous  discussions,  by  the  brilliant  liospitality  of  the  noble 
Milanese  city,  and  I  find  myself  deeply  impressed  by  two 
propositions.  First,  that  Science  is  of  no  nationality;  and 
secondly,  in  apparent,  but  only  in  apparent,  contradiction,  that 
Science  is  the  highest  personification  of  nationality.  Science 
has  no  nationality  because  knowledge  is  the  patrimony  of 
humanity,  the  torch  which  gives  light  to  the  world.  Science 
should  be  the  highest  personification  of  nationality  because,  of 
all  the  nations,  that  one  will  always  be  foremost  which  shall 
be  first  to  progress  by  the  labours  of  thought  and  of  intelligence. 
Let  us  therefore  strive  in  the  pacific  field  of  Science  for  the 
pre-eminence  of  our  several  countries.  Let  us  strive,  for  strife 
is  effort;  strife  is  life  when  progress  is  the  goal. 

"You  Itahans,  try  to  multiply  on  the  soil  of  your  beautiful 
and  glorious  country  the  Tecchi,  the  Brioschi,  the  Tacchini, 
the  Sella,  the  Cornalia.  .  .  .  You,  proud  children  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  follow  even  more  firmly  than  in  the  past  the  fruitful 
impulse  which  an  eminent  statesman,  now  your  representative 
at  the  Court  of  England,  has  given  to  Science  and  Agriculture. 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

We,  who  are  here  present,  do  not  forget  that  the  first  sericicul- 
ture  establishment  was  founded  in  Austria.  As  to  you, 
Japanese,  may  the  cultivation  of  Science  be  numbered  among 
the  chief  objects  of  your  care  in  the  amazing  social  and  political 
transformation  of  which  you  are  giving  the  marvellous  spec- 
tacle to  the  world.  We  Frenchmen,  bending  under  the  sorrow 
of  our  mutilated  country,  should  show  once  again  that  great 
trials  may  give  rise  to  great  thoughts  and  great  actions. 
"  I  drink  to  the  peaceful  strife  of  Science." 
"You  will  find,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  Dumas,  telling  him  of 
this  toast,  which  had  been  received  with  enthusiastic  applause, 
"  an  echo  of  the  feelings  with  which  you  have  inspired  your 
pupils  on  the  grandeur  and  the  destiny  of  Science  in  modern 
society." 

The  tender  and  delicate  side  of  this  powerful  spirit  was  thus 
once  again  apparent  in  this  deference  to  his  master  in  the  midst 
of  acclamations,  and  in  those  deep  and  noble  ideas  expressed 
in  the  middle  of  a  noisy  banquet.  But  it  was  chiefly  in  his 
private  life  that  his  open-heartedness,  his  desire  to  love  and 
to  be  loved,  became  apparent.  That  great  genius  had  a  child- 
like heart,  and  the  charm  of  this  was  incomparable. 

He  once  said  :  "  The  recompense  and  the  ambition  of  a 
scientist  is  to  conquer  the  approbation  of  his  peers  and  of  the 
masters  whom  he  venerates."  He  had  already  known  that 
recompense  and  could  satisfy  that  ambition.  Dumas  had 
known  and  appreciated  him  for  thirty  years ;  Lister  had  pro- 
claimed his  gratitude ;  Tyndall — an  indefatigable  excursionist, 
who  loved  to  survey  wide  horizons,  and  who  in  his  celebrated 
classes  was  wont  to  make  use  of  comparisons  with  altitudes 
and  heights  and  everything  which  opens  a  clear  and  vast  out- 
look— had  a  great  admiration  for  the  wide  development  of  Pas- 
teur's work.  Now,  Pasteur's  experiments  had  been  strongly 
attacked  by  a  young  English  physician,  Dr.  Bastian,  who  had 
excited  in  the  English  and  American  public  a  bitter  prejudice 
against  the  results  announced  by  Pasteur  on  the  subject  of 
spontaneous  generation. 

"  The  confusion  and  uncertainty,"  wrote  Tyndall  to  Pas- 
teur, "  have  finally  become  such  that,  six  months  ago,  I  thought 
that  it  would  be  rendering  a  service  to  Science,  at  the  same 
time  as  justice  to  yourself,  if  the  question  were  subjected  to  ;. 
fresh  investigation. 

"  Putting  into  practice  an  idea  which  I  had  entertained  six 


1873—1877  253 

years  ago — the  details  of  which  are  set  out  in  the  article  in  the 
British  Medical  Journal  which  I  had  the  pleasure  to  send  yon — 
I  went  over  a  large  portion  of  the  ground  on  which  Dr.  Bastian 
had  taken  up  his  stand,  and  refuted,  I  think,  many  of  the  fal- 
lacies which  had  misled  the  public. 

' '  The  change  which  has  taken  place  since  then  in  the  tone 
of  the  English  medical  journals  is  quite  remarkable,  and  I  am 
disposed  to  think  that  the  general  confidence  of  the  public  in 
the  accuracy  of  Dr.  Bastian's  experiments  has  been  consider- 
ably shaken. 

"In  taking  up  these  investigations,  I  have  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  refreshing  my  memory  about  your  labours  ;  they  have 
reawakened  in  me  all  the  admiration  which  I  felt  for  them 
when  I  first  read  of  them.  I  intend  to  continue  these  investiga- 
tions until  I  have  dispersed  all  the  doubts  which  may  have 
arisen  as  to  the  indisputable  accuracy  of  your  conclusions." 

And  Tyndall  added  a  paragraph  for  which  Pasteur  modestly 
substituted  asterisks  in  communicating  this  letter  to  the 
Academy. 

"  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Science  we  have  the 
right  to  cherish  the  sure  and  certain  hope  that,  as  regards  epi- 
demic diseases,  medicine  will  soon  be  delivered  from  quackery 
and  placed  on  a  real  scientific  basis.  When  that  day  arrives, 
Humanity,  in  my  opinion,  will  know  how  to  recognize  that  it  is 
to  you  that  will  be  due  the  largest  share  of  her  gratitude." 

Tyndall  was  indeed  qualified  to  sign  this  passport  to  immor- 
tality. But  in  the  meanwhile  a  struggle  was  necessary,  and 
Pasteur  did  not  wish  to  leave  the  burden  of  the  discussion  even 
on  such  shoulders  as  Tyndall 's !  Moreover  he  was  interested 
in  his  opponent. 

"Dr.  Bastian,"  writes  M.  Duclaux,  "  had  some  tenacity,  a 
fertile  mind,  and  the  love,  if  not  the  gift,  of  the  experimental 
method."  The  discussion  was  destined  to  last  for  months. 
In  general  (according  to  J.  B.  Dumas'  calculation)  "  at  the  end 
of  ten  years,  judgment  on  a  great  thing  is  usually  formed ;  it 
is  by  then  an  accomplished  fact,  an  idea  adopted  by  Science  or 
irrevocably  repudiated."  Pasteur,  on  the  morrow  of  the  Milan 
Congress,  might  feel  that  it  had  been  so  for  the  adoption  of  his 
system  of  cellular  seeding,  but  such  was  not  the  case  in  this 
question  of  spontaneous  generation.  The  quarrel  had  started 
again  at  the  Academy  of  Sciences  and  at  the  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine; it  was  now  being  revived  in  England,  and  Bastian  pro- 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

posed  to  come  himself  and  experiment  in  the  laboratory  of 
the  Ecole  Normale. 

"  For  nearly  twenty  years,"  said  Pasteur,  "  I  have  pursued, 
without  finding  it,  a  proof  of  life  existing  without  an  anterior 
and  similar  life.  The  consequences  of  such  a  discovery  would 
be  incalculable ;  natural  science  in  general,  and  medicine  and 
philosophy  in  particular,  would  receive  therefrom  an  impulse 
which  cannot  be  foreseen.  Therefore,  whenever  I  hear  that 
this  discovery  has  been  made,  I  hasten  to  verify  the  assertions 
of  my  fortunate  rival.  It  is  true  that  I  hasten  towards  him 
with  some  degree  of  mistrust ,  so  many  times  have  I  experienced 
that,  in  the  difficult  art  of  experimenting,  the  very  cleverest 
stagger  at  every  step,  and  that  the  interpretation  of  facts  is  no 
less  perilous." 

Dr.  Bastian  operated  on  acid  urine,  boiled  and  neutralized 
by  a  solution  of  potash  heated  to  a  temperature  of  120°  C.  If, 
after  the  flask  of  urine  had  cooled  down,  it  was  heated  to  a 
temperature  of  50°  C.  in  order  to  facilitate  the  development  of 
germs,  the  liquid  in  ten  hours'  time  swarmed  with  bacteria. 
"  Those  facts  prove  spontaneous  generation,"  said  Dr.  Bastian. 

Pasteur  invited  him  to  replace  his  boiled  solution  of  potash  by 
a  fragment  of  solid  potash,  after  heating  it  to  110°  C. ,  in  order  to 
avoid  the  bacteria  germs  which  might  be  contained  in  the 
aqueous  solution.  This  question  of  the  germs  of  inferior 
organisms  possibly  contained  in  water  was — during  the  course 
of  that  protracted  discussion — studied  by  Pasteur  with  the  assist- 
ance of  M.  Joubert,  Professor  of  Physics  at  the  College  Eollin. 
Such  germs  were  to  be  found  even  in  the  distilled  water  of  labo- 
ratories ;  it  was  sufficient  that  the  water  should  be  poured  in  a 
thin  stream  through  the  air  to  become  contaminated.  Spring 
water,  if  slowly  filtered  through  a  solid  mass  of  ground,  alone 
contained  no  germs. 

There  was  also  the  question  of  the  urine  and  that  of  the  re- 
cipient. The  urine,  collected  by  Dr.  Bastian  in  a  vase  and 
placed  into  a  retort,  neither  of  which  had  been  put  through  a 
flame,  might  contain  spores  of  a  bacillus  called  bacillus  subtilis, 
which  offer  a  great  resistance  to  the  action  of  heat.  Those 
spores  do  not  develop  in  notably  acid  liquids,  but  the  liquid  hav- 
ing been  neutralized  or  rendered  slightly  alkaline  by  the  potash , 
the  development  of  germs  took  place.  The  thing  therefore  to 
be  done  was  to  collect  the  urine  in  a  vase  and  introduce  it  into 
a  retort  both  of  which  had  been  put  through  a  flame.     After 


1873—1877  255 

that,  no  organisms  were  produced,  as  was  stated  in  the  thesis 
of  M.  Chamberland,  then  a  curator  at  the  laboratory,  and  who 
took  an  active  part  in  these  experiments. 

A  chapter  might  well  have  been  written  by  a  moralist  ' '  On 
the  use  of  certain  opponents"  ;  for  it  was  through  that  discus- 
sion with  Bastian  that  it  was  discovered  how  it  was  that — at 
the  time  of  the  celebrated  discussions  on  spontaneous  genera- 
tion—the heterogenists,  Pouchet,  Joly,  and  Musset,  operating 
as  Pasteur  did,  but  in  a  different  medium,  obtained  results  ap- 
parently contradictory  to  Pasteur's.  If  their  flasks,  filled  with 
a  decoction  of  hay,  almost  constantly  showed  germs,  whilst  Pas- 
teur's, full  of  yeast  water,  were  always  sterile,  it  was  because 
the  hay  water  contained  spores  of  the  bacillus  subtilis.  The 
spores  remained  inactive  as  long  as  the  liquid  was  preserved 
from  the  contact  of  air,  but  as  soon  as  oxygen  re-entered  the 
flask  they  were  able  to  develop. 

The  custom  of  raising  liquids  to  a  temperature  of  120°  C. 
in  order  to  sterilize  them  dates  from  that  conflict  with  Bastian. 
"  But,"  writes  M.  Duclaux,  "the  heating  to  120°  of  a  flask 
half  filled  with  liquid  can  sterilize  the  liquid  part  only, 
allowing  life  to  persist  in  those  regions  which  are  not  in  contact 
with  the  liquid.  In  order  to  destroy  everything,  the  dry  walls 
must  be  heated  to  180°  C." 

A  former  pupil  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  who  had  been  a  curator 
in  Pasteur's  laboratory  since  October,  1876,  Boutroux  by  name, 
who  witnessed  all  these  researches,  wrote  in  his  thesis  :  "  The 
knowledge  of  these  facts  makes  it  possible  to  obtain  absolutely 
pure  neutral  culture  mediums,  and,  in  consequence,  to  study 
as  many  generations  as  are  required  of  one  unmixed  micro- 
organism, whenever  pure  seed  has  been  procured." 

Pasteur  has  defined  what  he  meant  by  putting  tubes,  cotton, 
vases,  etc. ,  through  a  flame <  "  In  order  to  get  rid  of  the  micro- 
scopic germs  which  the  dusts  of  air  and  of  the  water  used  for 
the  washing  of  vessels  deposit  on  every  object,  the  best  means 
is  to  place  the  vessels  (their  openings  closed  with  pads  of  cotton 
wool)  during  half  an  hour  in  a  gas  stove,  heating  the  air  in 
which  the  articles  stand  to  a  temperature  of  about  150°  C.  to 
200°  C.  The  vessels,  tubes,  etc.,  are  then  ready  for  use.  The 
cotton  wool  is  enclosed  in  tubes  or  in  blotting-paper." 

What  Pasteur  had  recommended  to  surgeons,  when  he  ad- 
vised them  to  pass  through  a  flame  all  the  instruments  they 
used,  had  become  a  current  practice  in  the  laboratory  ;  the  least 


256  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

pad  of  cotton  wool  used  as  a  stopper  was  previously  sterilized. 
Thus  was  an  entirely  new  technique  rising  fully  armed  and 
ready  to  repel  new  attacks  and  ensure  new  victories. 

If  Pasteur  was  so  anxious  to  drive  Dr.  Bastian  to  the  wall, 
it  was  because  he  saw  behind  that  so-called  experiment  on 
spontaneous  generation  a  cause  of  perpetual  conflict  with  phy- 
sicians and  surgeons.  Some  of  them  desired  to  repel  purely 
and  simply  the  whole  theory  of  germs.  Others,  disposed  to 
admit  the  results  of  Pasteur's  researches,  as  laboratory  work, 
did  not  admit  his  experimental  incursions  on  clinical  ground. 
Pasteur  therefore  wrote  to  Dr.  Bastian  in  the  early  part  of 
July,  1877— 

"  Do  you  know  why  I  desire  so  much  to  fight  and  conquer 
you?  it  is  because  you  are  one  of  the  princij)al  adepts  of  a 
medical  doctrine  which  I  believe  to  be  fatal  to  progress  in  the 
art  of  healing — the  doctrine  of  the  spontaneity  of  all  diseases. 
.  .  .  That  is  an  error  which,  I  repeat  it,  is  harmful  to  medical 
progress.  From  the  prophylactic  as  well  as  from  the  thera- 
peutic point  of  view,  the  fate  of  the  physician  and  surgeon 
depends  upon  the  adoption  of  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  two 
doctrines." 


CHAPTEE    IX 

1877—1879 

The  confusion  of  ideas  on  the  origin  of  contagious  and  epidemic 
diseases  was  about  to  be  suddenly  enlightened ;  Pasteur  had 
now  taken  up  the  study  of  the  disease  known  as  charbon  or 
splenic  fever.  This  disease  was  ruining  agriculture ;  the 
French  provinces  of  Beauce,  Brie,  Burgundy,  Nivernais,  Berry, 
Champagne,  Dauj^hine  and  Auvergne,  paid  a  formidable  yearly 
tribute  to  this  mysterious  scourge.  In  the  Beauce,  for  in- 
stance, twenty  sheep  out  of  every  hundred  died  in  one  flock; 
in  some  parts  of  Auvergne  the  proportion  was  ten  or  fifteen  per 
cent.,  sometimes  even  twenty-five,  thirty-five,  or  fifty  per  cent. 
At  Provins,  at  Meaux,  at  Fontainebleau,  some  farms  were 
called  charhon  farms;  elsewhere,  certain  fields  or  hills  were 
looked  upon  as  accursed  and  an  evil  spell  seemed  to  be  thrown 
over  flocks  bold  enough  to  enter  those  fields  or  ascend  those  hills. 
Animals  stricken  with  this  disease  almost  always  died  in  a  few 
hours;  sheep  were  seen  to  lag  behind  the  flock,  with  drooping 
head,  shaking  limbs  and  gasping  breath ;  after  a  rigor  and  some 
sanguinolent  evacuations,  occurring  also  through  the  mouth  and 
nostrils,  death  supervened,  often  before  the  shepherd  had  had 
time  to  notice  the  attack.  The  carcase  rapidly  became  dis- 
tended, and  the  least  rent  in  the  skin  gave  issue  to  a  flow  of 
black,  thick  and  viscid  blood,  hence  the  name  of  anthrax  given 
to  the  disease.  It  was  also  called  splenic  fever,  because 
necropsy  showed  that  the  spleen  had  assumed  enormous  dimen- 
sions ;  if  that  were  opened,  it  presented  a  black  and  liquid  pulp. 
In  some  places  the  disease  assumed  a  character  of  extreme  viru- 
lence ;  in  the  one  district  of  Novgorod,  in  Eussia,  56,000  head 
of  cattle  died  of  splenic  infection  between  1867  and  1870. 
Horses,  oxen,  cows,  sheep,  everything  succumbed,  as  did  also 
528  persons,  attacked  by  the  contagion  under  divers  forms ;  a 

s 


258  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

pin   prick   or   a   scratch   is  sufficient  to   inoculate   shepherds, 
butchers,  knackers  or  farmers  with  the  mahgnant  pustule. 

Though  a  professor  at  the  Alfort  Veterinary  School,  M. 
Delafond,  did  point  out  to  his  pupils  as  far  back  as  1838  that 
charbon  blood  contained  "little  rods,"  as  he  called  them;  it 
was  only  looked  upon  by  himself  and  them  as  a  curiosity  with 
no  scientific  importance.  Davaine,  when  he — and  Eayer  as 
well — recognized  in  1850  those  little  filiform  bodies  in  the  blood 
of  animals  dying  of  splenic  fever,  he  too  merely  mentioned 
the  fact,  which  seemed  to  him  of  so  little  moment  that  he  did 
not  even  report  it  in  the  first  notice  of  his  works  edited  by 
himself. 

It  was  only  eleven  years  later  that  Davaine — struck,  as  he 
himself  gladly  acknowledged,  by  reading  Pasteur's  paper  on 
the  butyric  ferment,  the  little  cylindrical  rods  of  which  offer  all 
the  characteristics  of  vibriones  or  bacteria — asked  himself 
whether  the  filiform  corpuscles  seen  in  the  blood  of  the  charbon 
victims  might  not  act  after  the  manner  of  ferments  and  be  the 
cause  of  the  disease.  In  1863,  a  medical  man  at  Dourdan, 
whose  neighbour,  a  farmer,  had  lost  tw^elve  sheep  of  charbon  in 
a  week,  sent  blood  from  one  of  these  sheep  to  Davaine,  who 
hastened  to  inoculate  some  rabbits  with  this  blood.  He  recog- 
nized the  presence  of  those  little  transparent  and  motionless  rods 
which  he  called  bacteridia  (a  diminutive  of  bacterium,  or  rod- 
shaped  vibriones).  It  might  be  thought  that  the  cause  of  the 
evil  was  found,  in  other  words  that  the  relation  between  those 
bacteridia  and  the  disease  which  had  caused  death  could  not  be 
doubted.  But  two  professors  of  the  Val  de  Grace,  Jaillard  and 
Leplat,  refuted  these  experiments. 

They  had  procured,  in  the  middle  of  the  summer,  from  a 
knacker's  yard  near  Chartres,  a  little  blood  from  a  cow  which 
had  died  of  anthrax,  and  they  inoculated  some  rabbits  with  it. 
The  rabbits  died,  but  without  presenting  any  bacteridia.  Jail- 
lard and  Leplat  therefore  affirmed  that  splenic  fever  was  not 
an  affection  caused  by  parasites,  that  the  bacteridium  was  an 
epiphenomenon  of  the  disease  and  could  not  be  looked  upon 
as  the  cause  of  it. 

Davaine,  on  repeating  Jaillard  and  Leplat's  experiments, 
found  a  new  interpretation  ;  he  alleged  that  the  disease  they  had 
inoculated  was  not  anthrax.  Then  Jaillard  and  Leplat  ob- 
tained a  little  diseased  sheep's  blood  from  M.  Boutet,  a 
veterinary  surgeon  at  Chartres,  and  tried  that  instead  of  cow's 


1877—1879  259 

blood.  The  result  was  identical  :  death  ensued,  but  no  bac- 
teridia.     Were  there  then  two  diseases? 

Others  made  observations  in  their  turn.  It  occurred  to  a 
young  German  physician,  Dr.  Koch,  who  in  1876  was  begin- 
ning his  career  in  a  small  village  in  Germany ,  to  seek  a  culture 
medium  for  the  bacteridium.  A  few  drops  of  aqueous  humour, 
collected  in  the  eyes  of  oxen  or  of  rabbits,  seemed  to  him 
favourable.  After  a  few  hours  of  this  nutrition  the  rods  seen 
under  the  microscope  were  ten  or  twenty  times  larger  than  at 
first ;  they  lengthened  immoderately ,  so  as  to  cover  the  whole 
slide  of  the  microscope,  and  might  have  been  compared  to  a 
ball  of  tangled  thread.  Dr.  Koch  examined  those  lengths,  and 
after  a  certain  time  noticed  httle  spots  here  and  there  looking 
like  a  punctuation  of  spores.  Tyndall,  who  knew  how  to  secure 
continuous  attention  by  a  variety  of  comparisons,  said  at  a  scien- 
tific conference  in  Glasgow  a  few  months  later  that  those  little 
ovoid  bodies  were  contained  within  the  envelope  of  the  filament 
like  peas  in  their  pods.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Pasteur, 
when  he  studied,  in  connection  with  silkworm  diseases,  the 
mode  of  reproduction  of  the  vibriones  of  flachery,  had  seen 
them  divide  into  spores  similar  to  shining  corpuscles  ;  he  had 
demonstrated  that  those  spores,  like  seeds  of  plants,  could  re- 
vive after  a  lapse  of  years  and  continue  their  disastrous  work. 
The  bacterium  of  charbon,  or  bacillus  anthracis  as  it  now  began 
to  be  called,  reproduced  itself  in  the  same  way,  and,  when 
inoculated  by  Dr.  Koch  into  guinea-pigs,  rabbits  and  mice,  pro- 
voked splenic  fever  as  easily  and  inevitably  as  blood  from  the 
veins  of  an  animal  that  had  died  of  the  disease.  Bacilli  and 
spores  therefore  yielded  the  secret  of  the  contagion,  and  it 
seemed  that  the  fact  was  established,  when  Paul  Bert,  in 
January,  1877,  announced  to  the  Societe  de  Biologie  that  it  was 

possible  to  destroy  the  bacillus  anthracis  in  a  drop  of  blood  by 
compressed  oxygen,  to  inoculate  what  remained,  and  to  re- 
produce the  disease  and  death  without  any  trace  of  the  bac- 
teridium. .  .  .  Bacteridia,"  he  added,  "  are  therefore  neither 
the  cause  nor  the  necessary  effect  of  splenic  fever,  which  must 
be  due  to  a  virus." 

Pasteur  tackled  the  subject.  A  little  drop  of  the  blood  of  an 
animal  which  had  died  of  anthrax — a  microscopic  drop — was 
laid,  sown,  after  the  usual  precautions  to  ensure  purity,  in  a 
sterilized  balloon  which  contained  neutral  or  slightly  alkaline 
urine.     The  culture  medium  might  equally  be  common  house- 

s  2 


260  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

hold  broth,  or  beer-yeast  water,  either  of  them  neutralized  by 
potash.     After  a  few  hours,  a  sort  of  flake  was  floating  in  the 
liquid ;  the  bacteridia  could  be  seen ,  not  under  the  shape  of 
short   broken   rods,  but    with   the    appearance   of   filaments, 
tangled  like  a  skein  ;  the  culture  medium  being  highly  favour- 
able, they  were  rapidly  growing  longer.     A  drop  of  that  liquid, 
abstracted  from  the  first  vessel,  was  sown  into  a  second  vessel, 
of  which  one  drop  was  again  placed  into  a  third,  and  so  on, 
until  the  fortieth  flask  ;  the  seed  of  each  successive  culture  came 
from  a  tiny  drop  of  the  preceding  one.     If  a  drop  from  one  of 
those  flasks  was  introduced  under  the  skin  of    a    rabbit    or 
guinea-pig,  splenic  fever  and  death  immediately  ensued,  with 
the  same  symptoms  and  characteristics  as  if  the  original  drop 
of  blood  had  been  inoculated.     In  the  presence  of  the  results 
from  those  successive  cultures,  what  became  of  the  hypothesis 
of  an  inanimate  substance  contained  in  the  first  drop  of  blood? 
It  was  now  diluted  in  a  proportion  impossible  to  imagine.     It 
would  therefore  be  absurd,  thought  Pasteur,  to  imagine  that 
the  last  virulence  owed  its  power  to  a  virulent  agent  existing 
in  the  original  drop  of  blood ;  it  was  to  the  bacteridium,  multi- 
plied in  each  culture,  and  to  the  bacteridium  alone,  that  this 
power  was  due ;  the  life  of  the  bacteridium  had    made    the 
virulence.     "Anthrax  is  therefore,"   Pasteur  declared,  "the 
disease  of  the  bacteridium,  as  trichinosis  is  the  disease  of  the 
trichina,  as  itch  is  the  disease  of  its  special  acarus,  with  this 
circumstance,  however,  that,  in  anthrax,  the  parasite  can  only 
be  seen  through  a  microscope,  and  very  much  enlarged."   After 
the  bacteridium  had  presented  those  long  filaments,  within  a 
few  hours,  two  days  at  the  most,  another  spectacle  followed; 
amidst  those  filaments,  appeared  the  oval  shapes,  the  germs, 
spores  or  seeds,  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Koch.     Those  spores,  sown 
in  broth,  reproduced  in  their  turn  the  little  packets  of  tangled 
filaments,  the  bacteridia.     Pasteur  reported  that  "one  single 
germ  of  bacteridium  in  the   drop  which  is   sown   multiplies 
during  the  following  hours  and  ends  by  filling  the  whole  liquid 
with  such  a  thickness  of  bacteridia  that,  to  the  naked  eye,  it 
seems  that  carded  cotton  has  been  mixed  with  the  broth." 

M.  Chamberland,  a  pupil  who  became  intimately  associated 
with  this  work  on  anthrax ,  has  defined  as  follows  what  Pasteur 
had  now  achieved  :  "  By  his  admirable  process  of  culture  out- 
side organism,  Pasteur  shows  that  the  rods  which  exist  in  the 
blood,  and  for  which  he  has  preserved  the  name  of  bacteridia 


1877—1879  mi 

given  them  by  Davaine,  are  living  beings  capable  of  being  in- 
definitely reproduced  in  appropriate  liquids,  after  the  manner 
of  a  plant  multiplied  by  successive  cuttings.  The  bacterium 
does  not  reproduce  itself  only  under  the  filamentous  form,  but 
also  through  spores  or  germs,  after  the  manner  of  many  plants 
which  present  two  modes  of  reproduction,  by  cuttings  and  by 
seeds."  The  first  point  was  therefore  settled.  The  ground 
suspected  and  indicated  by  Davaine  was  now  part  of  the  domain 
of  science,  and  preserved  from  any  new  attacks. 

Yet  Jaillard  and  Leplat's  experiments  remained  to  be  ex- 
plained :  how  had  they  provoked  death  through  the  blood  of  a 
splenic  fever  victim  and  found  no  bacteridia  afterwards?  It 
was  then  that  Pasteur,  guided,  as  Tyndall  expressed  it,  by 

his  extraordinary  faculty  of  combining  facts  with  the  reasons 
of  those  facts,"  placed  himself,  to  begin  with,  in  the  condi- 
tions of  Jaillard  and  Leplat,  who  had  received,  during  the 
height  of  the  summer,  some  blood  from  a  cow  and  a  sheep 
which  had  died  of  anthrax,  that  blood  having  evidently  been 
abstracted  more  than  twenty-four  hours  before  the  experiment. 
Pasteur,  who  had  arranged  to  go  to  the  very  spot,  the  knacker's 
yard  near  Chartres,  and  himself  collect  diseased  blood,  wrote 
to  ask  that  the  carcases  of  animals  which  had  died  of  splenic 
fever  should  be  kept  for  him  for  two  or  three  days. 

He  arrived  on  June  13, 1877,  accompanied  by  the  veterinary 
surgeon,  M.  Boutet.  Three  carcases  were  awaiting  him  :  that 
of  a  sheep  which  had  been  dead  sixteen  hours,  that  of  a  horse 
whose  death  dated  from  the  preceding  day,  and  that  of  a  cow 
which  must  have  been  dead  for  two  or  three  days,  for  it  had 
been  brought  from  a  distant  village.  The  blood  of  the  recently 
diseased  sheep  contained  bacteridia  of  anthrax  only.  In  the 
blood  of  the  horse,  putrefaction  vibriones  were  to  be  found, 
besides  the  bacteridia,  and  those  vibriones  existed  in  a  still 
greater  proportion  in  the  blood  of  the  cow.  The  sheep's  blood, 
inoculated  into  guinea-pigs,  provoked  anthrax  with  pure  bac- 
teridia ;  that  of  the  cow  and  of  the  horse  brought  a  rapid  death 
with  no  bacteridia. 

Henceforth  what  had  happened  in  Jaillard  and  Leplat's  ex- 
periments, and  in  the  incomplete  and  uncertain  experiments 
of  Davaine,  became  simple  and  perfectly  clear  to  Pasteur,  as 
well  as  the  confusion  caused  by  another  experimentalist  who 
had  said  his  say  ten  years  after  the  discussions  of  Jaillard, 
Leplat  and  Davaine. 


262  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

This  was  a  Paris  veterinary  surgeon,  M.  Signol.  He  had 
written  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  that  it  was  enough  that  a 
healthy  animal  should  be  felled,  or  rather  asphyxiated,  for  its 
blood,  taken  from  the  deeper  veins,  to  become  violently  viru- 
lent within  sixteen  hours.  M.  Signol  thought  he  had  seen 
motionless  bacteridia  similar  to  the  bacillus  anthracis  ;  but  those 
bacteridia,  he  said,  were  incapable  of  multiplying  in  the  inocu- 
lated animals.  Yet  the  blood  was  so  very  virulent  that  animals 
rapidly  succumbed  in  a  manner  analogous  to  death  by  splenic 
fever.  A  Commission  was  nominated  to  ascertain  the  facts ; 
Pasteur  was  made  a  member  of  it,  as  was  also  his  colleague 
Bouillaud — still  so  quick  and  alert,  in  spite  of  his  eighty  years, 
that  he  looked  less  like  an  old  man  than  like  a  wrinkled  young 
man — and  another  colleague,  twenty  years  younger,  Bouley, 
the  first  veterinary  surgeon  in  France  who  had  a  seat  at  the 
Institute.  The  latter  was  a  tall,  handsome  man,  with  a  some- 
what military  appearance,  and  an  expression  of  energetic  good 
humour  which  his  disposition  fully  justified.  He  was  eager  to 
help  in  the  propagation  of  new  ideas  and  discoveries,  and  soon, 
with  eager  enthusiasm,  placed  his  marked  talents  as  a  writer 
and  orator  at  Pasteur's  disposal. 

On  the  day  when  the  Commission  met,  M.  Signol  showed 
the  carcase  of  a  horse,  which  he  had  sacrificed  for  this  experi- 
ment, having  asphyxiated  it  when  in  excellent  health.  Pasteur 
uncovered  the  deep  veins  of  the  horse  and  showed  to  Bouley,  and 
also  to  Messrs.  Joubert  and  Chamberland,  a  long  vibrio,  so 
translucid  as  to  be  almost  invisible,  creeping,  flexible,  and 
which,  according  to  Pasteur's  comparison,  slipped  between  the 
globules  of  the  blood  as  a  serpent  slips  between  high  grasses ; 
it  was  the  septic  vibrio.  From  the  peritoneum,  where  it 
swarms,  that  vibrio  passes  into  the  blood  a  few  hours  after 
death ;  it  represents  the  vanguard  of  the  vibriones  of  putrefac- 
tion. When  Jaillard  and  Leplat  had  asked  for  blood  infected 
with  anthrax,  they  had  received  blood  which  was  at  the  same 
time  septic.  It  was  septicaemia  (so  prompt  in  its  action  that 
inoculated  rabbits  or  sheep  perish  in  twenty-four  or  thirty-six 
hours)  that  had  killed  Jaillard  and  Leplat's  rabbits.  It  was 
also  septicaemia,  provoked  by  this  vibrio  (or  its  germs,  for  it 
too  has  germs),  that  M.  Signol  had  unknowingly  inoculated 
into  the  animals  upon  which  he  experimented.  Successive 
cultures  of  that  septic  vibrio  enabled  Pasteur  to  show,  as  he 
had  done  for  the  bacillus  anthracis,  that  one  drop  of  those  cul- 


1877—1879  263 

tures  caused  septicaemia  in  an  animal.  But,  while  the  bacillus 
anthracis  is  aerobic,  the  septic  vibrio,  being  anaerobic,  must  be 
cultivated  in  a  vacuum,  or  in  carbonic  acid  gas.  And,  cultivat- 
ing those  bacteridia  and  those  vibriones  with  at  least  as  much 
care  as  a  Dutchman  might  give  to  rare  tulips,  Pasteur  succeeded 
in  parting  the  bacillus  anthracis  and  the  septic  vibrio  when 
they  were  temporarily  associated.  In  a  culture  in  contact  with 
air,  only  bacteridia  developed,  in  a  culture  preserved  from  air, 
only  the  septic  vibrio. 

What  Pasteur  called  "  the  Paul  Bert  fact  "  now  alone  re- 
mained to  be  explained ;  this  also  was  simple.  The  blood  Paul 
Bert  had  received  from  Chartres  was  of  the  same  quality  as 
that  which  Jaillard  and  Leplat  had  had ;  that  is  to  say  already 
septic.  If  filaments  of  bacillus  anthracis  and  of  septic  vibriones 
perish  under  compressed  oxygen,  such  is  not  the  case  with 
the  germs ,  which  are  extremely  tenacious  ;  they  can  be  kept  for 
several  hours  at  a  temperature  of  70°  C,  and  even  of  95°  C. 
Nothing  injures  them,  neither  lack  of  air,  carbonic  acid  gas  nor 
compressed  oxygen.  Paul  Bert,  therefore,  killed  filamentous 
bacteridia  under  the  influence  of  high  pressure;  but,  as  the 
germs  were  none  the  worse,  those  germs  revived  the  splenic 
fever.  Paul  Bert  came  to  Pasteur's  laboratory,  ascertained 
facts  and  watched  experiments.  On  June  23, 1877 ,  he  hastened 
to  the  Societe  de  Biologie  and  proclaimed  his  mistake,  acting  in 
this  as  a  loyal  Frenchman,  Pasteur  said. 

In  spite  of  this  testimony,  and  notwithstanding  the  admira- 
tion conceived  for  Pasteur  by  certain  medical  men — notably  H. 
Gueneau  de  Mussy,  who  published  in  that  very  year  (1877)  a 
paper  on  the  theory  of  the  contagium  germ  and  the  application 
of  that  theory  to  the  etiology  of  typhoid  fever — the  struggle 
was  being  continued  between  Pasteur  and  the  current  medical 
doctrines.  In  the  long  discussion  which  began  at  that  time 
in  the  Academic  de  Medecine  on  typhoid  fever,  some  masters 
of  medical  oratory  violently  attacked  the  germ  theory,  pro- 
claiming the  spontaneity  of  living  organism.  Typhoid  fever, 
they  said,  is  engendered  by  ourselves  within  ourselves.  Whilst 
Pasteur  was  convinced  that  the  day  would  come — and  that 
was  indeed  the  supreme  goal  of  his  life  work — when  contagious 
and  virulent  diseases  would  be  effaced  from  the  preoccupations, 
mournings  and  anxieties  of  humanity,  and  when  the  infinite- 
simally  small,  known,  isolated  and  studied,  would  at  last  be 
vanquished,  his  ideas  were  called  Utopian  dreams. 


264  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

The  old  professors,  whose  career  had  been  built  on  a  com- 
bination of  theories  which  they  were  pleased  to  call  medical 
truth,  dazed  by  such  startling  novelties,  endeavoured,  as  did 
Piorry,  to  attract  attention  to  their  former  writings.  "It  is 
not  the  disease,  an  abstract  being,"  said  Piorry,  "which  we 
have  to  treat,  but  the  patient,  whom  we  must  study  with  the 
greatest  care  by  all  the  physical,  chemical  and  clinical  means 
which  Science  offers." 

The  contagion  which  Pasteur  showed,  appearing  clearly  in 
the  disorders  visible  in  the  carcases  of  inoculated  guinea-pigs, 
was  counted  as  nothing.  As  to  the  assimilation  of  a  laboratory 
experiment  on  rabbits  and  guinea-pigs  to  what  occurred  in 
human  pathology,  it  may  be  guessed  that  it  was  quite  out  of 
the  question  for  men  who  did  not  even  admit  the  possibility  of  a 
comparison  between  veterinary  medicine  and  the  other.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  reconstitute  these  hostile  surroundings 
in  order  to  appreciate  the  efforts  of  will  required  of  Pasteur  to 
enable  him  to  triumph  over  all  the  obstacles  raised  before  him 
in  the  medical  and  the  veterinary  world. 

The  Professor  of  Alfort  School,  Colin,  who  had,  he  said, 
made  500  experiments  on  anthrax  within  the  last  twelve  years, 
stated,  in  a  paper  of  seventeen  pages,  read  at  the  Academy  of 
Medicine  on  July  31,  that  the  results  of  Pasteur's  experiments 
had  not  the  importance  which  Pasteur  attributed  to  them. 
Among  many  other  objections,  one  was  considered  by  Colin  as 
a  fatal  one — the  existence  of  a  virulent  agent  situated  in  the 
blood,  besides  the  bacteridia. 

Bouley,  who  had  just  communicated  to  the  Academy  of 
Sciences  some  notes  by  M.  Toussaint,  professor  at  the  Toulouse 
veterinary  school,  whose  experiments  agreed  with  those  of 
Pasteur,  was  nevertheless  a  little  moved  by  CoHn's  reading. 
He  wrote  in  that  sense  to  Pasteur,  who  was  then  spending  his 
holidays  in  the  Jura.  Pasteur  addressed  to  him  an  answer  as 
vigorous  as  any  of  his  replies  at  the  Academy. 

"Arbois,  August  18,  1877.— My  dear  colleague  ...  I 
hasten  to  answer  your  letter.  I  should  like  to  accept  literally 
the  honour  which  you  confer  upon  me  by  calling  me  '  your 
master,'  and  to  give  you  a  severe  reprimand,  you  faith- 
less man,  who  would  seem  to  have  been  shaken  by  M. 
CoHn's  reading  at  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  since  you  are 
still  holding  forth  on  the  possibility  of  a  virulent  agent, 
and  since  your  uncertainties  seem  to  be  appeased  by  a  new 


1877—1879  ^65 

notice,  read  by  yourself,  last  Monday,  at  the  Academie  des 
Sciences. 

' '  Let  me  tell  you  frankly  that  you  have  not  sufficiently 
imbibed  the  teaching  contained  in  the  papers  I  have  read,  in 
my  own  name  and  in  that  of  M.  Joubert,  at  the  Academie  des 
Sciences  and  at  the  Academy  of  Medicine.  Can  you  believe 
that  I  should  have  read  those  papers  if  they  had  v^anted  the 
confirmation  you  mention,  or  if  M.  Colin 's  contradictions  could 
have  touched  them?  You  know  what  my  situation  is,  in  these 
grave  controversies ;  you  know  that,  ignorant  as  I  am  of  medical 
and  veterinary  knowledge,  I  should  immediately  be  taxed  with 
presumption  if  I  had  the  boldness  to  speak  without  being 
armed  for  struggle  and  for  victory  !  All  of  you,  physicians  and 
veterinary  surgeons,  would  quite  reasonably  fall  upon  me  if  I 
brought  into  your  debates  a  mere  semblance  of  proof. 

"How  is  it  that  you  have  not  noticed  that  M.  Colin  has 
travestied — I  should  even  say  suppressed — because  it  hindered 
his  theory,  the  important  experiment  of  the  successive  cul- 
tures of  the  bacteridium  in  urine? 

"  If  a  drop  of  blood,  infected  with  anthrax,  is  mixed  with 
water,  with  pure  blood  or  with  humour  from  the  eye,  as  was 
done  by  Davaine,  Koch  and  M.  Colin  himself,  and  some  of 
that  mixture  is  inoculated  and  death  ensues,  doubt  may  remain 
in  the  mind  as  to  the  cause  of  virulence,  especially  since 
Davaine 's  well-known  experiments  on  septicaemia.  Our  ex- 
periment is  very  different  ..." 

And  Pasteur  showed  how,  from  one  artificial  culture  to 
another,  he  reached  the  fiftieth,  the  hundredth,  and  how  a 
drop  of  this  hundredth  culture,  identical  with  the  first,  could 
bring  about  death  as  certainly  as  a  drop  of  infected  blood. 

Months  passed,  and — as  Pasteur  used  to  wish  in  his  youth 
that  it  might  be — few  passed  without  showing  one  step  for- 
ward. In  a  private  letter  to  his  old  Arbois  school-fellow,  Jules 
Vercel,  he  wrote  (February  11,  1878)  :  "  I  am  extremely  busy  ; 
at  no  epoch  of  my  scientific  life  have  I  worked  so  hard  or  been 
so  much  interested  in  the  results  of  my  researches,  which  will, 
I  hope ,  throw  a  new  and  a  great  light  on  certain  very  important 
branches  of  medicine  and  of  surgery." 

In  the  face  of  those  successive  discoveries,  every  one  had  a 
word  to  say.  This  accumulation  of  facts  was  looked  down  upon 
by  that  category  of  people  who  borrow  assurance  from  a  mix- 


266  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

ture  of  ignorance  and  prejudice.  Others,  on  the  other  hand, 
amongst  whom  the  greatest  were  to  be  found,  proclaimed  that 
Pasteur's  work  was  immortal  and  that  the  word  "theory" 
used  by  him  should  be  changed  into  that  of  "  doctrine."  One 
of  those  who  thus  spoke,  with  the  right  given  by  full  knowledge, 
was  Dr.  Sedillot,  whose  open  and  critical  mind  had  kept  him 
from  becoming  like  the  old  men  described  by  Sainte  Beuve  as 
stopping  their  watch  at  a  given  time  and  refusing  to  recognize 
further  progress.  He  was  formerly  Director  of  the  Army 
Medical  School  at  Strasburg,  and  had  already  retired  in  1870, 
but  had  joined  the  army  again  as  volunteer  surgeon.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  he  had  written  from  the  Hagueneau 
ambulance  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences — of  which  he  was  a 
corresponding  member — to  call  the  attention  of  his  colleagues 
to  the  horrors  of  purulent  infection,  which  defied  his  zeal  and 
devotion. 

No  one  followed  Pasteur's  work  with  greater  attention  than 
this  tall,  sad-looking  old  man  of  seventy-four;  he  was  one  of 
those  who  had  been  torn  away  from  his  native  Alsace ,  and  he 
could  not  get  over  it.  In  March,  1878,  he  read  a  paper  to  the 
Academy,  entitled  "  On  the  Influence  of  M.  Pasteur's  Work 
on  Medicine  and  Surgery." 

Those  discoveries,  he  said,  which  had  deeply  modified  the 
state  of  surgery,  and  particularly  the  treatment  of  wounds, 
could  be  traced  back  to  one  principle.  This  principle  was 
applicable  to  various  facts,  and  explained  Lister's  success,  and 
the  fact  that  certain  operations  had  become  possible,  and  that 
certain  cases,  formerly  considered  hopeless,  were  now  being 
recorded  on  all  sides.  Real  progress  lay  there.  Sedillot's 
concluding  paragraph  deserves  to  be  handed  down  as  a  com- 
ment precious  from  a  contemporary  :  "  We  shall  have  seen  the 
conception  and  birth  of  a  new  surgery,  a  daughter  of  Science 
and  of  Art,  which  will  be  one  of  the  greatest  wonders  of  our 
century,  and  with  which  the  names  of  Pasteur  and  Lister  will 
remain  gloriously  connected." 

In  that  treatise,  Sedillot  invented  a  new  word  to  charac- 
terize all  that  body  of  organisms  and  infinitely  small  vibriones, 
bacteria,  bacteridia,  etc.  ;  he  proposed  to  designate  them  all 
under  the  generic  term  of  microbe.  This  word  had,  in 
Sedillot's  eyes,  the  advantage  of  being  short  and  of  having  a 
general  signification.  He  however  felt  some  scruple  before 
using  it,  and  consulted  Littre,  who  replied  on  February  26, 


1877—1879  267 

1878:  "Dear  colleague  and  friend,  microbe  and  microbia  are 
very  good  words.  To  designate  the  animalculse  I  should  give 
the  preference  to  microbe,  because,  as  you  say,  it  is  short,  and 
because  it  leaves  microbia,  a  feminine  noun,  for  the  designation 
of  the  state  of  a  microbe." 

Certain  philologists  criticized  the  formation  of  the  word  in 
the  name  of  the  Greek  language.  Microbe,  they  said,  means 
an  animal  with  a  short  life,  rather  than  an  infinitesimally 
small  animal.  Littre  gave  a  second  testimonial  to  the  word 
microbe — 

"It  is  true,"  he  wrote  to  Sedillot,  "that  /Mtxp6/3Lo^  and 
fia')^p6^Lo<i  probably  mean  in  Greek  short-lived  and  long-lived. 
But,  as  you  justly  remark,  the  question  is  not  what  is  most 
purely  Greek,  but  what  is  the  use  made  in  our  language  of  the 
Greek  roots.  Now  the  Greek  has  /3to?,  life,  ^lovv,  to  live, 
^lovq,  living,  the  root  of  which  may  very  well  figure  under  the 
form  of  bi,  bia  with  the  sense  living,  in  aerobia,  anaerobia  and 
microbe.  I  should  advise  you  not  to  trouble  to  answer 
criticisms,  but  let  the  word  stand  for  itself,  which  it  will  no 
doubt  do."  Pasteur,  by  adopting  it,  made  the  whole  world 
familiar  with  it. 

Though  during  that  month  of  March,  1878,  Pasteur  had  had 
the  pleasure  of  hearing  Sedillot' s  prophetic  words  at  the 
Academic  des  Sciences,  he  had  heard  very  different  language 
at  the  Academic  de  Medecine.  Colin  of  Alfort,  from  the  iso- 
lated corner  where  he  indulged  in  his  misanthropy,  had 
renewed  his  criticisms  of  Pasteur.  As  he  spoke  unceasingly 
of  a  state  of  virulent  anthrax  devoid  of  bacteridia,  Pasteur, 
losing  patience,  begged  of  the  Academic  to  nominate  a  Com- 
mission of  Arbitration. 

"  I  desire  expressly  that  M.  Colin  should  be  urged  to  demon- 
strate what  he  states  to  be  the  fact,  for  his  assertion  implies 
another,  which  is  that  an  organic  matter,  containing  neither 
bacteridia  nor  germs  of  bacteridia,  produces  within  the  body  of 
a  living  animal  the  bacteridia  of  anthrax.  This  would  be  the 
spontaneous  generation  of  the  bacillus  anthracis  !  " 

Colin 's  antagonism  to  Pasteur  was  such  that  he  contra- 
dicted him  in  every  point  and  on  every  subject.  Pasteur  having 
stated  that  birds,  and  notably  hens,  did  not  take  the  charbon 
disease ,  Colin  had  hastened  to  say  that  nothing  was  easier  than 
to  give  anthrax  to  hens  ;  this  was  in  July,  1877.  Pasteur,  who 
was  at  that  moment  sending  Colin  some  samples  of  bacteridia 


^8  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

culture  which  he  had  promised  him,  begged  that  he  would 
kindly  bring  him  in  exchange  a  hen  suffering  from  that  disease, 
since  it  could  contract  it  so  easily. 

Pasteur  told  the  story  of  this  episode  in  March ,  1878 ;  it  was 
an  amusing  interlude  in  the  midst  of  those  technical  discus- 
sions. "  At  the  end  of  the  week,  I  saw  M.  Colin  coming  into 
my  laboratory,  and,  even  before  I  shook  hands  with  him,  I  said 
to  him  :  '  Why,  you  have  not  brought  me  that  diseased  hen?  ' 
— 'Trust  me,'  answered  M.  Colin,  'you  shall  have  it  next 
week.' — I  left  for  the  vacation ;  on  my  return,  and  at  the  first 
meeting  of  the  Academy  which  I  attended,  I  went  to  M.  Colin 
and  said,  '  Well,  where  is  my  dying  hen?'  'I  have  only  just 
begun  experimenting  again,'  said  M.  Colin  ;  '  in  a  few  days  I 
will  bring  you  a  hen  suffering  from  charbon.' — Days  and  weeks 
went  by,  with  fresh  insistence  on  my  part  and  new  promises 
from  M.  Colin.  One  day,  about  two  months  ago,  M.  Colin 
owned  to  me  that  he  had  been  mistaken,  and  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  give  anthrax  to  a  hen.  '  Well,  my  dear  colleague,'  I 
said  to  him ,  '  I  will  show  you  that  it  is  possible  to  give  anthrax 
to  hens;  in  fact,  I  will  one  day  myself  bring  you  at  Alfort  a 
hen  which  shall  die  of  charbon.' 

"  I  have  told  the  Academy  this  story  of  the  hen  M.  Colin  had 
promised  in  order  to  show  that  our  colleague's  contradiction  of 
our  observations  on  charbon  had  never  been  very  serious." 

Colin,  after  speaking  about  several  other  things,  ended  by 
saying  :  "  I  regret  that  I  have  not  until  now  been  able  to  hand 
to  M.  Pasteur  a  hen  dying  or  dead  of  anthrax.  The  two  that 
I  had  bought  for  that  purpose  were  inoculated  several  times 
with  very  active  blood,  but  neither  of  them  has  fallen  ill. 
Perhaps  the  experiment  might  have  succeeded  afterwards,  but, 
one  fine  day,  a  greedy  dog  prevented  that  by  eating  up  the  two 
birds,  whose  cage  had  probably  been  badly  closed."  On  the 
Tuesday  which  followed  this  incident,  the  passers-by  were 
somewhat  surprised  to  see  Pasteur  emerging  from  the  Ecole 
Normale,  carrying  a  cage,  within  which  were  three  hens,  one 
of  them  dead.  Thus  laden,  he  took  a  fiacre,  and  drove  to  the 
Academic  de  Medecine,  where,  on  arriving,  he  deposited  this 
unexpected  object  on  the  desk.  He  explained  that  the  dead 
hen  had  been  inoculated  with  charbon  two  days  before,  at 
twelve  o'clock  on  the  Sunday,  with  five  drops  of  yeast  water 
employed  as  a  nutritive  liquid  for  pure  bacteridium  germs,  and 


1877—1879  269 

that  it  had  died  on  the  Monday  at  five  o'clock,  twenty-nine 
hours  after  the  inoculation.  He  also  explained,  in  his  own 
name,  and  in  the  names  of  Messrs.  Joubert  and  Chamberland, 
how  in  the  presence  of  the  curious  fact  that  hens  were  refrac- 
tory to  charbon,  it  had  occurred  to  them  to  see  whether  that 
singular  and  hitherto  mysterious  preservation  did  not  have  its 
cause  in  the  temperature  of  a  hen's  body,  "  higher  by  several 
degrees  than  the  temperature  of  the  body  of  all  the  animal 
species  which  can  be  decimated  by  charbon." 

This  preconceived  idea  was  followed  by  an  ingenious  experi- 
ment.    In  order  to  lower  the  temperature  of  an  inoculated 
hen's  body,  it  was  kept  for  some  time  in  a  bath,  the  water 
covering  one-third  of  its  body.     When  treated  in  that  way, 
said  Pasteur,  the    hen   dies   the  next   day.     "  All   its  blood, 
spleen,  lungs,  and  liver  are  filled  with  bacilli  anthracis  sus- 
ceptible of  ulterior  cultures  either  in  inert  liquids  or  in  the 
bodies  of  animals.     We  have  not  met  with  a  single  exception." 
As  a  proof  of  the  success  of  the  experiment,  the  white  hen 
lay  on  the  floor  of  the  cage.     As  people  might  be  forthcoming, 
even  at  the  Academy,  who  would  accuse  the  prolonged  bath 
of  having  caused  death,  one  of  the  two  living  hens,  a  gray 
one,  who  was  extremely  lively,  had  been  placed  in  the  same 
bath,   at  the  same  temperature   and  during  the   same   time. 
The  third  one,  a  black  hen,  also  in  perfect  health,  had  been 
inoculated  at  the  same  time  as  the  white  hen,  with  the  same 
liquid,  but  with  ten  drops  instead  of  five,  to  make  the  com- 
parative result  more  convincing ;  it  had  not  been  subjected  to 
the  bath  treatment.     "You  can  see  how  healthy  it  is,"  said 
Pasteur ;  "it  is  therefore  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  white 
hen  died  of  charbon;  besides,  the  fact  is  proved  by  the  bac- 
teridia  which  fill  its  body." 

A  fourth  experiment  remained  to  be  tried  on  a  fourth  hen, 
but  the  Academy  of  Medicine  did  not  care  to  hold  an  all-night 
sitting.  Time  lacking,  it  was  only  done  later,  in  the  labora- 
tory. Could  a  hen,  inoculated  of  charbon  and  placed  in  a 
bath,  recover  and  be  cured  merely  by  being  taken  out  of  its 
bath?  A  hen  was  taken,  inoculated  and  held  down  a  prisoner 
in  a  bath,  its  feet  fastened  to  the  bottom  of  the  tub,  until  it 
was  obvious  that  the  disease  was  in  full  progress.  The  hen 
was  then  taken  out  of  the  water,  dried,  and  wrapped  up  in 
cotton  wool  and  placed  in  a  temperature  of  35°  C.     The  bac- 


270  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

teridia  were  reabsorbed  by  the  blood,  and  the  hen  recovered 
completely. 

This  was,  indeed,  a  most  suggestive  experiment,  proving 
that  the  mere  fall  of  temperatnre  from  42°  C.  (the  tempera- 
ture of  hens)  to  38°  C.  was  sufficient  to  cause  a  receptive  con- 
dition ;  the  hen ,  brought  down  by  immersion  to  the  tempera- 
ture of  rabbits  or  guinea-pigs,  became  a  victim  like  them. 

Between  Sedillot's  enthusiasm  and  Colin's  perpetual  contra- 
diction, many  attentive  surgeons  and  physicians  were  taking 
a  middle  course,  watching  for  Pasteur's  results  and  ultimately 
accepting  them  with  admiration.  Such  was  the  state  of  mind 
of  M.  Lereboullet,  an  editor  of  the  Weekly  Gazette  of  Medi- 
cine and  Surgery,  who  wrote  in  an  account  of  the  Academic  de 
Medecine  meeting  that  ' '  those  facts  throw  a  new  light  on  the 
theory  of  the  genesis  and  development  of  the  bacillus  anthracis. 
They  will  be  ascertained  and  verified  by  other  experimentalists , 
and  it  seems  very  probable  that  M.  Pasteur,  who  never  brings 
any  premature  or  conjectural  assertion  to  the  academic  tribune, 
wdll  deduce  from  them  conclusions  of  the  greatest  interest  con- 
cerning the  etiology  of  virulent  diseases." 

But  even  to  those  who  admired  Pasteur  as  much  as  did  M. 
Lereboullet,  it  did  not  seem  that  such  an  important  part  should 
immediately  be  attributed  to  microbes.  Towards  the  end  of 
his  report  (dated  March  22,  1878)  he  reminded  his  readers  that 
a  discussion  was  open  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine,  and  that 
the  surgeon,  Leon  Le  Fort,  did  not  admit  the  germ  theory  in 
its  entirety.  M.  Le  Fort  recognized  "  all  the  services  rendered 
to  surgery  by  laboratory  studies,  chiefly  by  calling  attention  to 
certain  accidents  of  wounds  and  sores,  and  by  provoking  new 
researches  with  a  view  to  improving  methods  of  dressing  and 
bandaging."  "Like  all  his  colleagues  at  the  Academy,  and 
like  our  eminent  master,  M.  Sedillot,"  added  M.  Lereboullet, 
"  M.  Ijc  Fort  renders  homage  to  the  work  of  M.  Pasteur;  but 
he  remains  within  his  rights  as  a  practitioner  and  reserves  his 
opinion  as  to  its  general  apj^lication  to  surgery." 

This  was  a  mild  way  of  putting  it ;  M.  Le  Fort's  words  were, 
"  That  theory,  in  its  applications  to  clinical  surgery,  is  abso- 
lutely inacceptable."  For  him,  the  original  purulent  infection, 
though  coming  from  the  wound,  was  born  under  the  influence 
of  general  and  local  phenomena  within  the  patient,  and  not 
outside  him.  He  believed  that  the  economy  had  the  power, 
under  various  influences,,  to  produce   purulent   infection.     A 


1877—1879  271 

septic  poison  was  created ,  born  spontaneously ,  which  was  after- 
wards carried  to  other  patients  by  such  medicines  as  the  tools 
and  bandages  and  the  hands  of  the  surgeon.  But,  originally, 
before  the  propagation  of  the  contagium  germ,  a  purulent  in- 
fection was  spontaneously  produced  and  developed.  And,  in 
order  to  put  his  teaching  into  forcible  words,  M.  Le  Fort 
declared  to  the  Academic  de  Medecine  :  "I  believe  in  the 
interiority  of  the  principle  of  purulent  infection  in  certain 
patients ;  that  is  why  I  oppose  the  extension  to  surgery  of  the 
germ  theory  which  proclaims  the  constant  exteriority  of  that 
principle." 

Pasteur  rose,  and  with  his  firm,  powerful  voice,  exclaimed  : 
* '  Before  the  Academy  accepts  the  conclusion  of  the  paper  we 
have  just  heard,  before  the  application  of  the  germ  theory  to 
pathology  is  condemned,  I  beg  that  I  may  be  allowed  to  make 
a  statement  of  the  researches  I  am  engaged  in  with  the  colla- 
boration of  Messrs.  Joubert  and  Chamberland." 

His  impatience  was  so  great  that  he  formulated  then  and 
there  some  headings  for  the  lecture  he  was  preparing,  proposi- 
tions on  septicsemia  or  putrid  infection,  on  the  septic  vibrio 
itself,  on  the  germs  of  that  vibrio  carried  by  wind  in  the  shape 
of  dust,  or  suspended  in  water,  on  the  vitality  of  those  germs, 
etc.  He  called  attention  to  the  mistakes  which  might  be  made 
if,  in  that  new  acquaintance  with  microbes,  their  morphologic 
aspect  alone  was  taken  account  of.  "  The  septic  vibrio,  for 
instance,  varies  so  much  in  its  shape,  length  and  thickness, 
according  to  the  media  wherein  it  is  cultivated,  that  one  would 
think  one  was  dealing  with  beings  specifically  distinct  from 
each  other." 

It  was  on  April  30,  1878,  that  Pasteur  read  that  celebrated 
lecture  on  the  germ  theory,  in  his  own  name  and  in  that  of 
Messrs.  Joubert  and  Chamberland.  It  began  by  a  proud  exor- 
dium :  "All  Sciences  gain  by  mutual  support.  When,  subse- 
quently to  my  early  communications  on  fermentations,  in  1857- 
1868,  it  was  admitted  that  ferments,  properly  so  called,  are  liv- 
ing beings ;  that  germs  of  microscopical  organisms  abound  on 
the  surface  of  all  objects  in  the  atmosphere  and  in  water ;  that 
the  hypothesis  of  spontaneous  generation  is  a  chimera ;  that 
wines,  beer,  vinegar,  blood,  urine  and  all  the  liquids  of  the 
economy  are  preserved  from  their  common  changes  when  in 
contact  with  pure  air — Medicine  and  Surgery  cast  their  eyes 
towards  these  new  lights.     A  French  physician,  M.  Davaine, 


272  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

made  a  first  successful  application  of  those  principles  to  medi- 
cine in  1863." 

Pasteur  himself,  elected  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences  as  a 
mineralogist,  proved  by  the  concatenation  of  his  studies  within 
the  last  thirty  years  that  Science  was  indeed  one  and  all  em- 
bracing. Having  thus  called  his  audience's  attention  to  the 
bonds  which  connect  one  scientific  subject  with  another, 
Pasteur  proceeded  to  show  .the  connection  between  his  yester- 
day's researches  on  the  etiology  of  Charbon  to  those  he  now 
pursued  on  septicaemia.  He  hastily  glanced  back  on  his  suc- 
cessful cultures  of  the  bacillus  anthracis,  and  on  the  certain, 
indisputable  proof  that  the  last  culture  acted  equally  with  the 
first  in  producing  charbon  within  the  body  of  animals.  He 
then  owned  to  the  failure,  at  first,  of  a  similar  method  of  cul- 
tivating the  septic  vibrio  :  "  All  our  first  experiments  failed  in 
spite  of  the  variety  of  culture  media  that  we  used ;  beer-yeast 
water,  meat  broth,  etc.,  etc.   ..." 

He  then  expounded,  in  the  most  masterly  manner  :  (1)  the 
idea  which  had  occurred  to  him  that  this  vibrio  might  be  an 
exclusively  anaerobic  organism,  and  that  the  sterility  of  the 
liquids  might  proceed  from  the  fact  that  the  vibrio  was  killed  by 
the  oxygen  held  in  a  state  of  solution  by  those  liquids ;  (2)  the 
similarity  offered  by  analogous  facts  in  connection  with  the 
vibrio  of  butyric  fermentation,  which  not  only  lives  without 
air,  but  is  killed  by  air;  (3)  the  attempts  made  to  cultivate  the 
septic  vibrio  in  a  vacuum  or  in  the  presence  of  carbonic  acid 
gas,  and  the  success  of  both  those  attempts;  and,  finally,  as 
the  result  of  the  foregoing,  the  proof  obtained  that  the  action 
of  the  air  kills  the  septic  vibriones,  which  are  then  seen  to 
perish,  under  the  shape  of  moving  threads,  and  ultimately  to 
disappear,  as  if  burnt  away  by  oxygen. 

"If  it  is  terrifying,"  said  Pasteur,  "  to  think  that  life  may 
be  at  the  mercy  of  the  multiplication  of  those  infinitesimally 
small  creatures,  it  is  also  consoling  to  hojDe  that  Science  will 
not  always  remain  powerless  before  such  enemies,  since  it  is 
already  now  able  to  inform  us  that  the  simple  contact  of  air  is 
sometimes  sufficient  to  destroy  them.  But,"  he  continued, 
meeting  his  hearers'  possible  arguments,  "if  oxygen  destroys 
vibriones,  how  can  septicaemia  exist,  as  it  does,  in  the  constant 
presence  of  atmospheric  air?  How  can  those  facts  be  recon- 
ciled with  the  germ  theory?  How  can  blood  exposed  to  air 
become  septic  through  the  dusts  contained  in  air?     All  is  dark. 


1877—1879  273 

obscure  and  open  to  dispute  when  the  cause  of  the  phenomena 
is  not  known;  all  is  light  when  it  is  grasped." 

In  a  septic  liquid  exposed  to  the  contact  of  air,  vibriones  die 
and  disappear;  but,  below  the  surface,  in  the  depths  of  the 
liquid  (one  centimetre  of  septic  liquid  may  in  this  case  be 
called  depths) ,  ' '  the  vibriones  are  protected  against  the  action 
of  oxygen  by  their  brothers,  who  are  dying  above  them,  and 
they  continue  for  a  time  to  multiply  by  division ;  they  after- 
wards produce  germs  or  spores,  the  filiform  vibriones  themselves 
being  gradually  reabsorbed.  Instead  of  a  quantity  of  moving 
threads,  the  length  of  which  often  extends  beyond  the  field  of 
the  microscope,  nothing  is  seen  but  a  dust  of  isolated,  shiny 
specks,  sometimes  surrounded  by  a  sort  of  amorphous  gangue 
hardly  visible.  Here  then  is  the  septic  dust,  living  the  latent 
life  of  germs,  no  longer  fearing  the  destructive  action  of  oxygen, 
and  we  are  now  prepared  to  understand  what  seemed  at  first 
so  obscure  :  the  sowing  of  septic  dust  into  putrescible  liquids 
by  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  and  the  permanence  of  putrid 
diseases  on  the  surface  of  the  earth." 

Pasteur  continued  from  this  to  open  a  parenthesis  on  diseases 
"transmissible,  contagious,  infectious,  of  which  the  cause 
resides  essentially  and  solely  in  the  presence  of  microscopic 
organisms.  It  is  the  proof  that,  for  a  certain  number  of 
diseases,  we  must  for  ever  abandon  the  ideas  of  spontaneous 
vu'ulence,  of  contagious  and  infectious  elements  suddenly  pro- 
duced within  the  bodies  of  men  or  of  animals  and  originating 
diseases  afterwards  propagated  under  identical  shapes  ;  all  those 
opinions  fatal  to  medical  progress  and  which  are  engendered 
by  the  gratuitous  hypotheses  of  the  spontaneous  generation 
of  albuminoid-ferment  materia,  of  hemiorganism ,  of  arche- 
biosis,  and  many  other  conceptions  not  founded  on  observa- 
tion." 

Pasteur  recommended  the  following  experiment  to  surgeons. 
After  cutting  a  fissure  into  a  leg  of  mutton,  by  means  of  a 
bistoury,  he  introduced  a  drop  of  septic  vibrio  culture;  the 
vibrio  immediately  did  its  work.  "  The  meat  under  those  con- 
ditions becomes  quite  gangrened,  green  on  its  surface,  swollen 
with  gases,  and  is  easily  crushed  into  a  disgusting,  sanious 
pulp."  And  addressing  the  surgeons  present  at  the  meeting  : 
"  The  water,  the  sponge,  the  charpie  with  which  you  wash  or 
dress  a  wound,  lay  on  its  surface  germs  which,  as  you  see,  have 
an  extreme  facility  of  propagating  within  the  tissues,  and  which 

T 


274  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

would  infallibly  bring  about  the  death  of  the  patients  within 
a  very  short  time  if  life  in  their  limbs  did  not  oppose  the  multi- 
plication of  germs.  But  how  often,  alas,  is  that  \^tal  resistance 
powerless!  how  often  do  the  patient's  constitution,  his  weak- 
ness, his  moral  condition,  the  unhealthy  dressings,  oppose  but 
an  insufficient  barrier  to  the  invasion  of  the  Infinitesimally 
Small  with  which  you  have  covered  the  injured  part !  If  I  had 
the  honour  of  being  a  surgeon,  convinced  as  I  am  of  the 
dangers  caused  by  the  germs  of  microbes  scattered  on  the  sur- 
face of  every  object,  particularly  in  the  hospitals,  not  only 
would  I  use  absolutely  clean  instruments,  but,  after  cleansing 
my  hands  with  the  greatest  care  and  putting  them  quickly 
through  a  frame  (an  easy  thing  to  do  with  a  little  practice), 
I  would  only  make  use  of  charpie,  bandages,  and  sponges  which 
had  previously  been  raised  to  a  heat  of  130°  C.  to  150°  C.  ;  I 
would  only  employ  water  which  had  been  heated  to  a  tempera- 
ture of  110°  C.  to  120°  C.  All  that  is  easy  in  practice,  and,  in 
that  way,  I  should  still  have  to  fear  the  germs  suspended  in  the 
atmosphere  surrounding  the  bed  of  the  patient ;  but  observation 
shows  us  every  day  that  the  nurhber  of  those  germs  is  almost 
insignificant  compared  to  that  of  those  which  lie  scattered  on 
the  surface  of  objects,  or  in  the  clearest  ordinary  water." 

He  came  down  to  the  smallest  details,  seeing  in  each  one 
an  application  of  the  rigorous  principles  which  were  to  trans- 
form Surgery,  Medicine  and  Hygiene.  How  many  human 
lives  have  since  then  been  saved  by  the  dual  development  of 
that  one  method  !  The  defence  against  microbes  afforded  by 
the  substances  which  kill  them  or  arrest  their  development, 
such  as  carbolic  acid,  sublimate,  iodoform,  salol,  etc.,  etc.,  con- 
stitutes antisepsis;  then  the  other  progress,  born  of  the  first, 
the  obstacle  opposed  to  the  arrival  of  the  microbes  and  germs 
by  complete  disinfection,  absolute  cleanliness  of  the  instru- 
ments and  hands ,  of  all  w^hich  is  to  come  into  contact  with  the 
paient ;  in  one  word,  asepsis. 

It  migLt  have  been  prophesied  at  that  date  that  Pasteur's 
surprised  delight  at  seeing  his  name  gratefully  inscribed  on  the 
great  Italian  establishment  of  sericiculture  would  one  day  be 
surpassed  by  his  happiness  in  living  to  see  realized  some  of  the 
progress  and  benefits  due  to  him,  his  name  invoked  in  all 
operating  theatres,  engraved  over  the  doors  of  medical  and  sur- 
gical wards,  and  a  new  era  inaugurated. 

A  presentiment  of  the  future  deliverance  of  Humanity  from 


1877—1879  275 

those  redoubtable  microscopic  foes  gave  Pasteur  a  fever  for 
v7ork,  a  thirst  for  new  research,  and  an  immense  hope.  But 
once  again  he  constrained  himself,  refrained  from  throv^ing 
himself  into  varied  studies ,  and ,  continuing  what  he  had  begun , 
reverted  to  Kis  studies  on  splenic  fever. 

The  neighbourhood  of  Chartres  being  most  afflicted,  thie 
Minister  of  Agriculture,  anticipating  the  wish  of  the  Conseil 
General  of  the  department  of  Eure  et  Loir,  had  entrusted 
Pasteur  with  the  mission  of  studying  the  causes  of  so-called 
spontaneous  charbon,  that  which  bursts  out  unexpectedly  in  a 
flock,  and  of  seeking  for  curative  and  preventive  means  of 
opposing  the  evil.  Thirty-six  years  earlier,  the  learned 
veterinary  surgeon,  Delafond,  had  been  sent  to  seek,  particu- 
larly in  the  Beauce  country,  the  causes  of  the  charbon  disease. 
Bouley,  a  great  reader,  said  that  there  was  no  contrast  more 
instructive  than  that  which  could  be  seen  between  the  reason- 
ing method  followed  by  Delafond  and  the  experimental  method 
practised  by  Pasteur.  It  was  in  1842  that  Delafond  received 
from  M.  Cunin  Gridaine,  then  Minister  of  Agriculture,  the  mis- 
sion of  "going  to  study  that  malady  on  the  spot,  to  seek  for 
its  causes,  and  to  examine  particularly  whether  those  causes 
did  not  reside  in  the  mode  of  culture  in  use  in  that  part  of  the 
country."  Delafond  arrived  in  the  Beauce,  and,  having  seen 
that  the  disease  struck  the  strongest  sheep,  it  occurred  to  him 
that  it  came  from  ' '  an  excess  of  blood  circulating  in  the 
vessels."  He  concluded  from  that  that  there  might  be  a  cor- 
relation between  the  rich  blood  of  the  Beauce  sheep  and  the 
rich  nitrogenous  pasture  of  their  food. 

He  therefore  advised  the  cultivators  to  diminish  the  daily 
ration  ;  and  he  was  encouraged  in  his  views  by  noting  that 
the  frequency  of  the  disease  diminished  in  poor,  damp,  or 
sandy  soils. 

Bouley,  in  order  to  show  up  Delafond 's  efforts  to  make  facts 
accord  witE  his  reasoning,  added  that  to  explain  "a  disease, 
of  which  the  essence  is  general  plethora,  becoming  contagious 
and  expressing  itself  by  charbon  symptoms  in  man,"  Delafond 
had  imagined  that  the  atmosphere  of  the  pens,  into  which  the 
animals  were  crowded ,  was  laden  with  evil  gases  and  putrefying 
emanations  which  produced  an  alteration  of  the  blood  * '  due  at 
the  same  time  to  a  slow  asphyxia  and  to  the  introduction 
through  the  lungs  of  septic  elements  into  the  blood." 

It  would  have  been  but  justice  to  recall  other  researches  con- 

T  2 


276  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

nected  with  Delafond's  name.  In  1863,  Delafond  had  collected 
some  blood  infected  with  charbon,  and,  at  a  time  when  such 
experiments  had  hardly  been  thought  of,  he  had  attempted 
Bome  experiments  on  the  development  of  the  bacteridium,  under 
a  watch  glass,  at  the  normal  blood  temperature.  He  had  seen 
the  little  rods  grow  into  filaments,  and  compared  them  to  a 
"very  remarkable  mycelium."  "I  have  vainly  tried  to  see 
the  mechanism  of  fructification,"  added  Delafond,  "  but  I  hope 
I  still  may."  Death  struck  down  Delafond  before  he  could 
continue  his  work. 

In  1869  a  scientific  congress  was  held  at  Chartres ;  one  of 
the  questions  examined  being  this  :  "  What  has  been  done  to 
oppose  splenic  fever  in  sheep  ?  "  A  veterinary  surgeon  enume- 
rated the  causes  which  contributed,  according  to  him,  to  pro- 
duce and  augment  mortality  by  splenic  fever  :  bad  hygienic 
conditions;  tainted  food,  musty  or  cryptogamized ;  heated  and 
vitiated  air  in  the  crowded  pens ,  full  of  putrid  manure ;  paludic 
miasma  or  effluvia;  damp  soil  flooded  by  storms,  etc.,  etc.  A 
well-known  veterinary  surgeon,  M.  Boutet,  saw  no  other  means 
to  preserve  what  remained  of  a  stricken  flock  but  to  take  it  to 
another  soil,  which,  in  contradiction  with  his  colleague,  he 
thought  should  be  chosen  cool  and  damp.  No  conclusion  could 
be  drawn.  The  disastrous  loss  caused  by  splenic  fever  in  the 
Beauce  alone  was  terrible ;  it  was  said  to  have  reached 
20,000,000  francs  in  some  particularly  bad  years.  The  migra- 
tion of  the  tainted  flock  seemed  the  only  remedy,  but  it  was 
difficult  in  practice  and  offered  danger  to  other  flocks,  as  car- 
cases of  dead  sheep  were  wont  to  mark  the  road  that  had  been 
followed. 

Pasteur,  starting  from  the  fact  that  the  charbon  disease  is 
produced  by  the  bacteridium,  proposed  to  prove  that,  in  a 
department  like  that  of  Eure  et  Loir,  the  disease  maintained 
itself  by  itself.  When  an  animal  dies  of  splenic  fever  in  a 
field ,  it  is  frequently  buried  in  the  very  spot  where  it  fell ; 
thus  a  focus  of  contagion  is  created,  due  to  the  anthrax  spores 
mixed  with  the  earth  where  other  flocks  are  brought  to  graze. 
Those  germs,  thought  Pasteur,  are  probably  like  the  germs  of 
the  flachery  vibrio,  which  survive  from  one  year  to  another 
and  transmit  the  disease.  He  proposed  to  study  the  disease 
on  the  spot. 

It  almost  always  happened  that,  when  he  was  most  anxious 
to  give  himself  up  entirely  to  the  study  of  a  problem,  some 


1877—1879  277 

new  discussion  was  started  to  hinder  him.  He  had  certainly 
thought  that  the  experimental  power  of  giving  anthrax  to  hens 
had  been  fully  demonstrated,  and  that  that  question  was  dead, 
as  dead  as  the  inoculated  and  immersed  hen. 

Colin,  however,  returned  to  the  subject,  and  at  an  Academy 
meeting  of  July  9  said  somewhat  insolently,  "  I  wish  we  could 
have  seen  the  bacteridia  of  that  dead  hen  which  M.  Pasteur 
showed  us  without  taking  it  out  of  its  cage,  and  which  he 
took  away  intact  instead  of  making  us  witness  the  necropsy 
and  microscopical  examination."  "I  will  take  no  notice," 
said  Pasteur  at  the  following  meeting ,  "of  the  malevolent 
insinuations  contained  in  that  sentence,  and  only  consider  M. 
Colin's  desire  to  hold  in  his  hands  the  body  of  a  hen  dead  of 
anthrax,  full  of  bacteridia.  I  will,  therefore,  ask  M.  Colin  if 
he  will  accept  such  a  hen  under  the  following  condition  :  the 
necropsy  and  microscopic  examination  shall  be  made  by  him- 
self, in  my  presence,  and  in  that  of  one  of  our  colleagues  of  this 
Academy,  designated  by  himself  or  by  this  Academy,  and  an 
official  report  shall  be  drawn  up  and  signed  by  the  persons 
present.  So  shall  it  be  well  and  duly  stated  that  M.  Colin's 
conclusions,  in  his  paper  of  May  14,  are  null  and  void.  The 
Academy  will  understand  my  insistence  in  rejecting  M.  Colin's 
superficial  contradictions. 

' '  I  say  it  here  with  no  sham  modesty  :  I  have  always  con- 
sidered that  my  only  right  to  a  seat  in  this  place  is  that  given 
me  by  your  great  kindness,  for  I  have  no  medical  or  veterinary 
knowledge.  I  therefore  consider  that  I  must  be  more  scrupu- 
lously exact  than  any  one  else  in  the  presentations  which  I  have 
the  honour  to  make  to  you  ;  I  should  promptly  lose  all  credit  if  I 
brought  you  erroneous  or  merely  doubtful  facts.  If  ever  I  am 
mistaken,  a  thing  which  may  happen  to  the  most  scrupulous, 
it  is  because  my  good  faith  has  been  greatly  surprised. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  come  amongst  you  with  a  pro- 
gramme to  follow  which  demands  accuracy  at  every  step.  I 
can  tell  you  my  programme  in  two  words  :  I  have  sought  for 
twenty  years,  and  I  am  still  seeking,  spontaneous  generation 
properly  so  called. 

"  If  God  permit,  I  shall  seek  for  twenty  years  and  more  the 
spontaneous  generation  of  transmissible  diseases. 

' '  In  these  difficult  researches ,  whilst  sternly  deprecating 
frivolous  contradiction,  I  only  feel  esteem  and  gratitude 
towards  those  who  may  warn  me  if  I  should  be  in  error." 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

The  Academy  decided  that  the  necropsy  and  miscroscopic 
examination  of  the  dead  hen  which  Pasteur  was  to  bring  to 
CoHn  should  take  place  in  the  presence  of  a  Commission  com- 
posed of  Pasteur,  Colin,  Davaine,  Bouley,  and  Yulpian.  This 
Commission  met  on  the  following  Saturday,  July  20,  in  the 
Council  Chamber  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine.  M.  Armand 
Moreau,  a  member  of  the  Academy,  joined  the  five  members 
present,  partly  out  of  curiosity,  and  partly  because  he  had 
special  reasons  for  wishing  to  speak  to  Pasteur  after  the 
meeting. 

Three  hens  were  lying  on  the  table,  all  of  them  dead.  The 
first  one  had  been  inoculated  under  the  thorax  with  five  drops 
of  yeast  water  slightly  alkalized,  which  had  been  given  as  a 
nutritive  medium  to  some  bacteridia  anthracis ;  the  hen 
had  been  placed  in  a  bath  at  25°  C,  and  had  died  within 
twenty -two  hours.  The  second  one,  inoculated  with  ten  drops 
of  a  culture  liquid,  had  been  placed  in  a  warmer  bath,  30°  C, 
and  had  died  in  thirty-six  hours.  The  third  hen,  also 
inoculated  and  immersed,  had  died  in  forty-six  hours. 

Besides  those  three  dead  hens,  there  was  a  living  one  which 
had  been  inoculated  in  the  same  way  as  the  first  hen.  This 
one  had  remained  for  forty-three  hours  with  one-third  of  its 
body  immersed  in  a  barrel  of  water.  When  it  was  seen  in  the 
laboratory  that  its  temperature  had  gone  down  to  36°  C,  that 
it  was  incapable  of  eating  and  seemed  very  ill,  it  was  taken  out 
of  the  tub  that  very  Saturday  morning,  and  warmed  in  a  stove 
at  42°  C.  It  was  now  getting  better,  though  still  weak,  and 
gave  signs  of  an  excellent  appetite  before  leaving  the  Academy 
council  chamber. 

The  third  hen,  which  had  been  inoculated  with  ten  drops, 
was  dissected  then  and  there.  Bouley,  after  noting  a  serous 
infiltration  at  the  inoculation  focus,  showed  to  the  judges 
sitting  in  this  room,  thus  suddenly  turned  into  a  testing  labora- 
tory, numerous  bacteridia  scattered  throughout  every  part  of 
the  hen. 

"  After  those  ascertained  results,"  wrote  Bouley,  who  drew 
up  the  report,  "  M.  Colin  declared  that  it  was  useless  to  pro- 
ceed to  the  necropsy  of  the  two  other  hens,  that  which  had  just 
been  made  leaving  no  doubt  of  the  presence  of  bacilli  anthracis 
in  the  blood  of  a  hen  inoculated  with  charbon  and  then  placed 
under  the  conditions  designated  by  M.  Pasteur  as  making 
inoculation  efficacious. 


1877—1879  S79 

"  The  hen  No.  2  has  been  given  up  to  M.  Colin  to  be  used 
for  any  examination  or  experiment  which  he  might  hke  to 
try  at  Alfort. 

"  Signed  :  G.  Cohn,  H.  Bouley,  C.  Davaine,  L.  Pasteur, 
A.   Vulpian." 

"  This  is  a  precious  autograph,  headed  as  it  is  by  M.  Cohn's 
signature!"  gaily  said  Bouley.  But  Pasteur,  pleased  as  he 
was  with  this  conclusion,  which  put  an  end  to  all  discussion 
on  that  particular  point,  was  already  turning  his  thoughts  into 
another  channel.  The  Academician  who  had  joined  the 
members  of  the  Commission  was  showing  him  a  number  of 
the  Revue  Scientifique  which  had  appeared  that  morning,  and 
which  contained  an  article  of  much  interest  to  Pasteur. 

In  October,  1877,  Claude  Bernard,  staying  for  the  last  time 
at  St.  Julien,  near  Villefranche,  had  begun  some  experiments 
on  fermentations.  He  had  continued  them  on  his  return  to 
Paris,  alone,  in  the  study  which  was  above  his  laboratory  at 
the  College  de  France. 

When  Paul  Bert,  his  favourite  pupil,  M.  d' Arson val,  his 
curator,  M.  Dastre,  a  former  pupil,  and  M.  Armand  Moreau, 
his  friend,  came  to  see  him,  he  said  to  them  in  short,  enig- 
matical sentences,  with  no  comment  or  experimental  demon- 
stration, that  he  had  done  some  good  work  during  the  vacation. 
' '  Pasteur  will  have  to  look  out  .  .  .  Pasteur  has  only 
seen  one  side  of  the  question  ...  I  make  alcohol  without 
cells  .   .   .  There  is  no  life  without  air  .   .   . " 

Bernard's  and  Pasteur's  seats  at  the  Academy  of  Sciences 
were  next  to  each  other,  and  they  usually  enjoyed  inter- 
changing ideas.  Claude  Bernard  had  come  to  the  November 
and  December  sittings,  but,  with  a  reticence  to  which  he  had 
not  accustomed  Pasteur,  he  had  made  no  allusion  to  his 
October  experiments.  In  January,  1878,  he  became  seriously 
ill ;  in  his  conversations  with  M.  d' Arson  val,  who  was  affec- 
tionately nursing  him,  Claude  Bernard  talked  of  his  next 
lecture  at  the  Museum,  and  said  that  he  would  discuss  his  ideas 
with  Pasteur  before  handling  the  subject  of  fermentations.  At 
the  end  of  January  M.  d'Arsonval  alluded  to  these  incomplete 
revelations.  "It  is  all  in  my  head,"  said  Claude  Bernard, 
"but  I  am  too  tired  to  explain  it  to  you."  He  made  the  same 
weary  answer  two  or'  three  days  before  his  death.  When  he 
succumbed,  on  February  10,  1878,  Paul  Bert,  M.  d'Arsonval 
and  M.  Dastre  thought  it  their  duty  to  ascertain  whether  their 


280  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

master  had  left  any  notes  relative  to  the  work  which  embodied 
his  last  thoughts.  M.  d'Arsonval,  after  a  few  days'  search, 
discovered  some  notes,  carefully  hidden  in  a  cabinet  in  Claude 
Bernard's  bedroom ;  they  were  all  dated  from  the  1st  to  the 
20th  of  October,  1877  ;  of  November  and  December  there  was 
no  record.  Had  he  then  not  continued  his  experiments  during 
that  period?  Paul  Bert  thought  that  these  notes  did  not 
represent  a  work,  not  even  a  sketch,  but  a  sort  of  programme. 
"  It  was  all  condensed  into  a  series  of  masterly  conclusions," 
said  Paul  Bert,  "  which  evidenced  certitude,  but  there  were  no 
means  of  discussing  through  which  channel  that  certitude  had 
come  to  his  prudent  and  powerful  mind."  What  should  be 
done  with  those  notes?  Claude  Bernard's  three  followers 
decided  to  publish  them.  "  We  must,"  said  Paul  Bert,  "  while 
telling  the  conditions  under  which  the  manuscript  was  found, 
give  it  its  character  of  incomplete  notes,  of  confidences  made  to 
itself  by  a  great  mind  seeking  its  way,  and  marking  its  road 
indiscriminately  with  facts  and  with  hypotheses  in  order  to 
arrive  at  that  feeling  of  certainty  which,  in  the  mind  of  a  man 
of  genius,  often  precedes  proof."  M.  Berthelot,  to  whom  the 
manuscript  was  brought,  presented  these  notes  to  the  readers 
of  the  Revue  Scientifique.  He  pointed  to  their  character,  too 
abbreviated  to  conclude  with  a  rigorous  demonstration,  but  he 
explained  that  several  friends  and  pupils  of  Claude  Bernard 
had  ' '  thought  that  there  would  be  some  interest  for  Science  in 
preserving  the  trace  of  the  last  subjects  of  thought,  however 
incomplete,  of  that  great  mind." 

Pasteur,  after  the  experiment  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine, 
hurried  back  to  his  laboratory  and  read  with  avidity  those  last 
notes  of  Claude  Bernard.  Were  they  a  precious  find,  explain- 
ing the  secrets  Claude  Bernard  had  hinted  at?  "Should  I," 
said  Pasteur,  "  have  to  defend  my  work,  this  time  against  that 
colleague  and  friend  for  whom  I  professed  deep  admiration,  or 
should  I  come  across  unexpected  revelations,  weakening  and 
discrediting  the  results  I  thought  I  had  definitely  established?  " 
His  reading  reassured  him  on  that  point,  but  saddened  him 
on  the  other  hand.  Since  Claude  Bernard  had  neither  desired 
nor  even  authorized  the  publication  of  those  notes,  why,  said 
Pasteur,  were  they  not  accompanied  by  an  experimental  com- 
mentary? Thus  Claude  Bernard  would  have  been  credited 
vsdth  what  was  good  in  his  MSS.,  and  he  would  not  have  been 
held  responsible  for  what  was  incomplete  or  defective. 


1877—1879  281 

"  As  for  me,  personally,"  wrote  Pasteur  in  the  first  pages 
of  his  Critical  Examination  of  a  Posthumous  Work  of  Claude 
Bernard  on  Fermentation,  "I  found  myself  cruelly  puzzled; 
had  I  the  right  to  consider  Claude  Bernard's  MS.  as  the  expres- 
sion of  his  thought,  and  was  I  free  to  criticize  it  thoroughly?  " 
The  table  of  contents  and  headings  of  chapters  in  Claude 
Bernard's  incomplete  MS.  condemned  Pasteur's  work  on 
alcoholic  fermentation.  The  non-existence  of  life  without  air ; 
the  ferment  not  originated  by  exterior  germs ;  alcohol  formed 
by  a  soluble  ferment  outside  life  .  .  .  such  were  Claude 
Bernard's  conclusions.  "If  Claude  Bernard  was  convinced," 
thought  Pasteur,  "  that  he  held  the  key  to  the  masterly  con- 
clusions with  which  he  ended  his  manuscript,  what  could  have 
been  his  motive  in  withholding  it  from  me  ?  I  looked  back 
upon  the  many  marks  of  kindly  affection  which  he  had  given 
me  since  I  entered  on  a  scientific  career,  and  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  notes  left  by  Bernard  were  but  a  pro- 
gramme of  studies,  that  he  had  tackled  the  subject,  and  that, 
following  in  this  a  method  habitual  to  him,  he  had,  the  better 
to  discover  the  truth,  formed  the  intention  of  trying  experi- 
ments which  might  contradict  my  opinions  and  results." 

Pasteur,  much  perplexed,  resolved  to  put  the  case  before  his 
colleagues,  and  did  so  two  days  later.  He  spoke  of  Bernard's 
silence,  his  abstention  from  any  allusion  at  their  weekly  meet- 
ings. "  It  seems  to  me  almost  impossible,"  he  said,  "  and  I 
wonder  that  those  who  are  publishing  these  notes  have  not  per- 
ceived that  it  is  a  very  delicate  thing  to  take  upon  oneself,  with 
no  authorization  from  the  author,  the  making  public  of  private 
notebooks  !  Which  of  us  would  care  to  think  it  might  be  done 
to  him !  .  .  .  Bernard  must  have  put  before  himself  that 
leading  idea,  that  I  was  in  the  wrong  on  every  point,  and  taken 
that  method  of  preparing  the  subject  he  intended  to  study." 
Such  was  also  the  opinion  of  those  who  remembered  that 
Claude  Bernard's  advice  invariably  was  that  every  theory 
should  be  doubted  at  first  and  only  trusted  when  found  capable 
of  resisting  objections  and  attacks. 

"If  then,  in  the  intimacy  of  conversation  with  his  friends 
and  the  yet  more  intimate  secret  of  notes  put  down  on  paper 
and  carefully  put  away,  Claude  Bernard  develops  a  plan  of 
research  with  a  view  to  judging  of  a  theory — if  he  imagines 
experiments — he  is  resolved  not  to  speak  about  it  until  those 
experiments  have  been  clearly  checked ;  we  should  therefore 


282  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

not  take  from  his  notes  the  most  expressly  formulated  pro- 
positions without  reminding  ourselves  that  all  that  was  but  a 
project,  and  that  he  meant  to  go  once  again  through  the  experi- 
ments he  had  already  made." 

Pasteur  declared  himself  ready  to  answer  any  one  who  would 
defend  those  experiments  which  he  looked  upon  as  doubtful, 
erroneous,  or  wrongly  interpreted.  "  In  the  opposite  case," 
he  said,  "  out  of  respect  for  Claude  Bernard's  memory,  I  will 
repeat  his  experiments  before  discussing  them." 

Some  Academicians  discoursed  on  these  notes  as  on  simple 
suggestions  and  advised  Pasteur  to  continue  his  studies  with- 
out allowing  himself  to  be  delayed  by  mere  control  experi- 
ments. Others  considered  these  notes  as  the  expression  of 
Claude  Bernard's  thought.  "That  opinion,"  said  Pasteur — 
man  of  sentiment  as  he  was — "that  opinion,  however,  does 
not  explain  the  enigma  of  his  silence  towards  me.  But  why 
should  I  look  for  that  explanation  elsewhere  than  in  my  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  his  fine  character  ?  Was  not  his  silence 
a  new  proof  of  his  kindness,  and  one  of  the  effects  of  our 
mutual  esteem  ?  Since  he  thought  that  he  held  in  his  hands 
a  proof  that  the  interpretation  I  had  given  to  my  experiments 
was  fallacious,  did  he  not  simply  wish  to  wait  to  inform  me 
of  it  until  the  time  when  he  thought  himself  ready  for  a  definite 
statement  ?  I  prefer  to  attribute  high  motives  to  my  friend's 
actions,  and,  in  my  opinion,  the  surprise  caused  in  me  by  his 
reserve  towards  the  one  colleague  whom  his  work  most  inter- 
ested should  give  way  in  my  heart  to  feelings  of  pious  gratitude. 
However,  Bernard  would  have  been  the  first  to  remind  me  that 
scientific  truth  soars  above  the  proprieties  of  friendship,  and 
that  my  duty  lies  in  discussing  views  and  opinions  in  my  turn 
with  full  liberty." 

Pasteur  having  made  this  communication  to  the  Academy  on 
July  22,  hastily  ordered  three  glass  houses,  which  he  intended 
to  take  with  him  into  the  Jura,  "  where  I  possess,"  he  told  his 
colleagues,  "  a  vineyard  occupying  some  thirty  or  forty  square 
yards." 

Two  observations  expounded  in  a  chapter  of  his  Studies  on 
Beer  tend  to  establish  that  yeast  can  only  appear  about  the 
time  when  grapes  ripen,  and  that  it  disappears  in  the  winter 
only  to  show  itself  again  at  the  end  of  the  summer."  There- 
fore "  germs  of  yeast  do  not  yet  exist  on  green  grapes."  "  We 
are,"  he  added,  "at  an  epoch  in  the  year  when,  by  reason  of 


1877—1879  283 

the  lateness  of  vegetation  due  to  a  cold  and  rainy  season ,  grapes 
are  still  in  the  green  stage  in  the  vineyards  of  Arbois.  If  I 
choose  this  moment  to  enclose  some  vines  in  almost  hermeti- 
cally closed  glass  houses,  I  shall  have  in  October  during  the 
vintage  some  vines  bearing  ripe  grapes  without  the  exterior 
germs  of  wine  yeast.  Those  grapes,  crushed  with  precautions 
which  will  not  allow  of  the  introduction  of  yeast  germs,  will 
neither  ferment  nor  produce  wine.  I  shall  give  myself  the 
pleasure  of  bringing  some  back  to  Paris,  to  present  them  to 
the  Academy  and  to  offer  a  few  bunches  to  those  of  our  col- 
leagues who  are  still  able  to  believe  in  the  spontaneous  genera- 
tion of  yeast." 

In  the  midst  of  the  agitation  caused  by  that  posthumous 
work  some  said,  or  only  insinuated,  that  if  Pasteur  was 
announcing  new  researches  on  the  subject,  it  was  because  he 
felt  that  his  work  was  threatened. 

"I  will  not  accept  such  an  interpretation  of  my  conduct," 
he  wrote  to  J.  B.  Dumas  on  August  4,  1878,  at  the  very  time 
when  he  was  starting  for  the  Jura ;  "  I  have  clearly  explained 
this  in  my  notice  of  July  22,  when  I  said  I  would  make  new 
experiments  solely  from  respect  to  Bernard's  memory." 

As  soon  as  Pasteur's  glass  houses  arrived,  they  were  put  up 
in  the  little  vineyard  he  possessed,  two  kilometres  from  Arbois. 
While  they  were  being  put  together,  he  examined  whether  the 
yeast  germs  were  really  absent  from  the  bunches  of  green 
grapes;  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  that  it  was  so,  and 
that  the  particular  branches  which  were  about  to  be  placed 
under  glass  did  not  bear  a  trace  of  yeast  germs.  Still,  fearing 
that  the  closing  of  the  glass  might  be  insufficient  and  that  there 
might  thus  be  a  danger  of  germs,  he  took  the  precaution, 
' '  while  leaving  some  bunches  free ,  of  wrapping  a  few  on  each 
plant  with  cotton  wool  previously  heated  to  150°  C." 

He  then  returned  to  Paris  and  his  studies  on  anthrax ,  whilst 
patiently  waiting  for  the  ripening  of  his  grapes. 

Besides  M.  Chamberland,  Pasteur  had  enrolled  M.  Eoux, 
the  young  man  who  was  so  desirous  of  taking  part  in  the  work 
at  the  laboratory.  He  and  M.  Chamberland  were  to  settle  down 
at  Chartres  in  the  middle  of  the  summer.  A  recent  student  of 
the  Alfort  Veterinary  School,  M.  Vinsot,  joined  them  at  his 
own  request.  M.  Eoux  has  told  of  those  days  in  a  paper  on 
Pasteur's  Medical  Work: 

"  Our  guide  was  M.  Boutet,  who  had  unrivalled  knowledge 


284  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

of  the  splenic  fever  country,  and  we  sometimes  met  M.  Tous- 
saint,  who  was  studying  the  same  subject  as  we  were.  We 
have  kept  a  pleasant  memory  of  that  campaign  against  charbou 
in  the  Chartres  neighbourhood.  Early  in  the  morning,  we 
would  visit  the  sheepfolds  scattered  on  that  wide  plateau  of  the 
Beauce,  dazzling  with  the  splendour  of  the  August  sunshine; 
then  necropsies  took  place  in  M.  Eabourdin's  knacker's  yard 
or  in  the  farmyards.  In  the  afternoon,  we  edited  our  experi- 
ment notebooks,  wrote  to  Pasteur,  and  arranged  for  new 
experiments.  The  day  was  well  filled,  and  how  interesting 
and   salutary    was   that   bacteriology   practised    in    the    open 


an- 


"On  the  days  when  Pasteur  came  to  Chartres,  we  did  not 
linger  over  our  lunch  at  the  Hotel  de  France ;  we  drove  off  to 
St.  Germain,  where  M.  Maunoury  had  kindly  put  his  farm 
and  flocks  at  our  disposal.  During  the  drive  we  talked  of  the 
week's  work  and  of  what  remained  to  be  done. 

"  As  soon  as  Pasteur  left  the  carriage  he  hurried  to  the  folds. 
Standing  motionless  by  the  gate,  he  would  gaze  at  the  lots 
which  were  being  experimented  upon,  with  a  careful  attention 
which  nothing  escaped ;  he  would  spend  hours  watching  one 
sheep  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  sickening.  We  had  to  remind 
him  of  the  time  and  to  point  out  to  him  that  the  towers  of 
Chartres  Cathedral  were  beginning  to  disappear  in  the  falling 
darkness  before  we  could  prevail  upon  him  to  come  away.  He 
questioned  farmers  and  their  servants,  giving  much  credit  to 
the  opinions  of  shepherds,  who  on  account  of  their  solitary  life, 
give  their  whole  attention  to  their  flocks  and  often  become 
sagacious  observers." 

When  again  at  Arbois,  on  September  17,  Pasteur  began  to 
write  to  the  Minister  of  Agriculture  a  note  on  the  practical 
ideas  suggested  by  this  first  campaign.  A  few  sheep,  bought 
near  Chartres  and  gathered  in  a  fold,  had  received,  amongst 
the  armfuls  of  forage  offered  them,  a  few  anthrax  spores. 
Nothing  had  been  easier  than  to  bring  these  from  the  labora- 
tory, in  a  liquid  culture  of  bacteria,  and  to  scatter  them  on  the 
field  where  the  little  flock  grazed.  The  first  meals  did  not  give 
good  scientific  results,  death  was  not  easily  provoked.  But 
when  the  experimental  menu  was  completed  by  prickly  plants, 
likely  to  wound  the  sheep  on  their  tongue  or  in  their  pharynx, 
such,  for  instance,  as  thistles  or  ears  of  barley,  the  mortality 
began.     It   was  perhaps   not  as  considerable  as   might   have 


1877—1879  285 

been  wished  for  demonstration  purposes,  but  nevertheless  it 
was  sufficient  to  explain  how  charbon  could  declare  itself,  for 
necropsy  showed  the  characteristic  lesions  of  the  so-called  spon- 
taneous splenic  fever.  It  was  also  to  be  concluded  therefrom 
that  the  evil  begins  in  the  mouth,  or  at  the  back  of  the  throat, 
supervening  on  meals  of  infected  food,  alone  or  mixed  with 
prickly  plants  likely  to  cause  abrasion. 

It  was  therefore  necessary,  in  a  department  like  that  of  Eure 
et  Loir,  which  must  be  full  of  anthrax  germs, — particularly  on 
the  surface  of  the  graves  containing  carcases  of  animals  which 
had  fallen  victims  to  the  disease,— that  sheep  farmers  should 
keep  from  the  food  of  their  animals  plants  such  as  thistles,  ears 
of  barley,  and  sharp  pieces  of  straw;  for  the  least  scratch, 
usually  harmless  to  sheep,  became  dangerous  through  the  pos- 
sible introduction  of  the  germs  of  the  disease. 

"  It  would  also  be  necessary,"  wrote  Pasteur,  "to  avoid  all 
probable  diffusion  of  charbon  germs  through  the  carcases  of 
animals  dying  of  that  disease,  for  it  is  likely  that  the  depart- 
ment of  Eure  et  Loir  contains  those  germs  in  greater  quantities 
than  the  other  departments ;  splenic  fever  having  long 
been  established  there,  it  always  goes  on,  dead  animals  not 
being  disposed  of  so  as  to  destroy  all  germs  of  ulterior  con- 
tagion." 

After  finishing  this  report,  Pasteur  went  to  his  little  vine- 
yard on  the  Besangon  road,  where  he  met  with  a  disappoint- 
ment ;  his  precious  grapes  had  not  ripened,  all  the  strength  of 
the  plant  seemed  to  have  gone  to  the  wood  and  leaves.  But 
the  grapes  had  their  turn  at  the  end  of  September  and  in 
October,  those  bunches  that  were  swathed  in  cotton  wool  as 
well  as  those  which  had  remained  free  under  the  glass ;  there 
was  a  great  difference  of  colour  between  them,  the  former 
being  very  pale.  Pasteur  placed  grapes  from  the  two  series 
in  distinct  tubes.  On  October  10,  he  compared  the  grapes 
of  the  glass  houses,  free  or  swathed,  with  the  neighbouring 
open-air  grapes.  "The  result  was  beyond  my  expectations; 
the  tubes  of  open-air  grapes  fermented  with  grape  yeast  after 
a  thirty-six  or  forty-eight  hours'  sojourn  in  a  stove  from  25°  C. 
to  30°  C.  ;  not  one,  on  the  contrary,  of  the  numerous  tubes  of 
grapes  swathed  in  cotton  wool  entered  into  alcoholic  fermenta- 
tion, neither  did  any  of  the  tubes  containing  grapes  ripened 
free  under  glass.  It  was  the  experiment  described  in  my 
Studies  on   Beer.     On   the   following  days  I   repeated   these 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

experiments  with  the  same  results."  He  went  on  to  another 
experiment.  He  cut  some  of  the  swathed  bunches  and  hung 
them  to  the  vines  grown  in  the  open  air,  thinking  that  those 
bunches — exactly  similar  to  those  which  he  had  found  in- 
capable of  fermentation — would  thus  get  covered  with  the 
germs  of  alcoholic  ferments,  as  did  the  bunches  grown  in  the 
open  air  and  their  wood.  After  that,  the  bunches  taken  from 
under  the  glass  and  submitted  to  the  usual  regime  would  fer- 
ment under  the  influence  of  the  germs  which  they  would  receive 
as  well  as  the  others  ;  this  was  exactly  what  happened. 

The  difficulty  now  was  to  bring  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences 
these  branches  bearing  swathed  bunches  of  grapes ;  in  order 
to  avoid  the  least  contact  to  the  grapes,  these  vine  plants,  as 
precious  as  the  rarest  orchids,  had  to  be  held  upright  all  the 
way  from  Arbois  to  Paris.  Pasteur  came  back  to  Paris  in  a 
coupe  carriage  on  the  express  train,  accompanied  bj^  his  wife 
and  daughter,  who  took  it  in  turns  to  carry  the  vines.  At 
last,  they  arrived  safely  at  the  Ecole  Normale,  and  from  the 
Ecole  Normale  to  the  Institute,  and  Pasteur  had  the  pleasure 
of  bringing  his  grapes  to  his  colleagues  as  he  had  brought  his 
hens.  "  If  you  crush  them  while  in  contact  with  pure  air," 
he  said,  "  I  defy  you  to  see  them  ferment."  A  long  discussion 
then  ensued  with  M.  Berthelot,  which  was  prolonged  until 
February,  1879. 

"It  is  a  characteristic  of  exalted  minds,"  wrote  M.  Eoux, 
"  to  put  passion  into  ideas.  .  .  .  For  Pasteur,  the  alcoholic 
fermentation  was  correlative  with  the  life  of  the  ferment ; 
for  Bernard  and  M.  Berthelot,  it  was  a  chemical  action  like 
any  other,  and  could  be  accomplished  without  the  participation 
of  living  cells."  "In  alcoholic  fermentation,"  said  M. 
Berthelot,  "a  soluble  alcoholic  ferment  may  be  produced, 
which  perhaps  consumes  itself  as  its  production  goes  on." 

M.  Koux  had  seen  Pasteur  try  to  "extract  the  soluble  alco- 
holic ferment  from  yeast  cells  by  crushing  them  in  a  mortar, 
by  freezing  them  until  they  burst,  or  by  putting  them  into 
concentrated  saline  solutions,  in  order  to  force  by  osmose  the 
succus  to  leave  its  envelope."  Pasteur  confessed  that  his 
efforts  were  vain.  In  a  communication  to  the  Academic  des 
Sciences  on  December  30,  1878,  he  said — 

' '  It  ever  is  an  enigma  to  me  that  it  should  be  believed  that 
the  discovery  of  soluble  ferments  in  fermentations  properly  so 
called,  or  of  the  formation  of  alcohol  by  means  of  sugar,  inde- 


1877—1879  287 

pendently  of  cells  would  hamper  me.  It  is  true — I  own  it 
without  hesitation,  and  I  am  ready  to  explain  myself  more 
lengthily  if  desired — that  at  present  I  neither  see  the  necessity 
for  the  existence  of  those  ferments,  nor  the  usefulness  of  their 
action  in  this  order  of  fermentations.  Why  should  actions  of 
diastase,  which  are  but  phenomena  of  hydration,  be  confused 
with  those  of  organized  ferments,  or  vice  versa?  But  I  do  not 
see  that  the  presence  of  those  soluble  substances,  if  it  were 
ascertained,  could  change  in  any  way  the  conclusions  drawn 
from  my  labours,  and  even  less  so  if  alcohol  were  formed  by 
electrolysis. 

' '  They  agree  with  me  who  admit  : 

"Firstly.  That  fermentations,  properly  so  called,  offer  as 
an  essential  condition  the  presence  of  microscopic  organisms. 

"  Secondly.  That  those  organisms  have  not  a  spontaneous 
origin. 

"  Thirdly.  That  the  life  of  every  organism  which  can  exist 
away  from  free  oxygen  is  suddenly  concomitant  with  acts  of 
fermentation  ;  and  that  it  is  so  with  every  cell  which  continues 
to  produce  chemical  action  without  the  contact  of  oxygen." 

When  Pasteur  related  this  discussion,  and  formed  of  it  an 
appendix  to  his  book,  Critical  Examination  of  a  Posthumous 
Work  of  Claude  Bernard  on  Fermentations,  his  painful  feelings 
in  opposing  a  friend  who  was  no  more  were  so  clearly  evidenced 
that  Sainte  Claire  Deville  wrote  to  him  (June  9,  1879)  :  "  My 
dear  Pasteur,  I  read  a  few  passages  of  your  new  book  yester- 
day to  a  small  party  of  professors  and  savants.  We  all  were 
much  moved  by  the  expressions  with  which  you  praise  our 
dear  Bernard,  and  by  your  feelings  of  friendship  and  pure 
fraternity." 

Sainte  Claire  Deville  often  spoke  of  his  admiration  for 
Pasteur's  precision  of  thought,  his  forcible  speech,  the  clearness 
of  his  writings.  As  for  J.  B.  Dumas,  he  called  the  attention 
of  his  colleagues  at  the  Academic  Francaise  to  certain  pages 
of  that  Critical  Examination.  Though  unaccustomed  to  those 
particular  subjects,  they  could  not  but  be  struck  by  the  sagacity 
and  ingenuity  of  Pasteur's  researches,  and  by  the  eloquence 
inspired  by  his  genius.  A  propos  of  those  ferment  germs,  which 
turn  grape  juice  into  wine,  and  from  which  he  had  preserved 
his  swathed  bunches,  Pasteur  wrote — 

What   meditations   are  induced   by   those  results  !     It  is 
impossible  not  to  observe  that,  the  further  we  penetrate  into  the 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

experimental  study  of  germs,  the  more  we  perceive  sudden 
lights  and  clear  ideas  on  the  knowledge  of  the  causes  of  con- 
tagious diseases!  Is  it  not  worthy  of  attention  that,  in  that 
Arbois  vineyard  (and  it  would  be  true  of  the  million  hectares 
of  vineyards  of  all  the  countries  in  the  world) ,  there  should  not 
have  been ,  at  the  time  when  I  made  the  aforesaid  experiments , 
one  single  particle  of  earth  which  would  not  have  been  capable 
of  provoking  fermentation  by  a  grape  yeast,  and  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  earth  of  the  glass  houses  I  have  mentioned 
should  have  been  powerless  to  fulfil  that  office?  And  why? 
Because,  at  a  given  moment,  I  covered  that  earth  with  some 
glass.  The  death,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  of  a  bunch  of  grapes 
thrown  at  that  time  on  any  vineyard,  would  infallibly  have 
occurred  through  the  saccharomyces  parasites  of  which  I  speak  ; 
that  kind  of  death  would  have  been  impossible,  on  the  contrary, 
on  the  little  space  enclosed  by  my  glass  houses.  Those  few 
cubic  yards  of  air,  those  few  square  yards  of  soil,  were  there, 
in  the  midst  of  a  universal  possible  contagion,  and  they  were 
safe  from  it." 

And  suddenly  looking  beyond  those  questions  of  yeast  and 
vintage,  towards  the  germs  of  disease  and  of  death:  "Is  it 
not  permissible  to  believe,  by  analogy,  that  a  day  will  come 
when  easily  applied  preventive  measures  will  arrest  those 
scourges  which  suddenly  desolate  and  terrify  populations ;  such 
as  the  fearful  disease  (yellow  fever)  which  has  recently  invaded 
Senegal  and  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  or  that  other  (bubonic 
plague),  yet  more  terrible  perhaps,  which  has  ravaged  the  banks 
of  the  Volga." 

Pasteur,  with  his  quick  answers,  his  tenacious  refutations, 
was  looked  upon  as  a  great  fighter  by  his  colleagues  at  the 
Academy,  but  in  the  laboratory,  while  seeking  Claude  Ber- 
nard's soluble  ferment,  he  tackled  subjects  from  which  he  drew 
conclusions  which  were  amazing  to  physicians. 

A  worker  in  the  laboratory  had  had  a  series  of  furuncles. 
Pasteur,  whose  proverb  was  "  Seek  the  microbe,"  asked  him- 
self whether  the  pus  of  furuncles  might  not  have  an  organism, 
which,  carried  to  and  fro, — for  it  may  be  said  that  a  furuncle 
never  comes  alone — would  explain  the  centre  of  inflammation 
and  the  recurrence  of  the  furuncles.  After  abstracting — with 
the  usual  purity  precautions — some  pus  from  three  successive 
furuncles,  he  found  in  some  sterihzed  broth  a  microbe,  formed 
of  little  rounded  specks  which  clustered  to  the  sides  of  the 


1877—1879  289 

culture  vessel.  The  same  was  observed  on  a  man  whom  Dr. 
Maurice  Eaynaud,  interested  in  those  researches  on  furuncles, 
had  sent  to  the  laboratory,  and  afterwards  on  a  female  patient 
of  the  Lariboisiere  Hospital,  whose  back  was  covered  with 
furuncles.  Later  on,  Pasteur,  taken  by  Dr.  Lannelongue  to 
the  Trousseau  Hospital,  where  a  little  girl  was  about  to  be 
operated  on  for  that  disease  of  the  bones  and  marrow  called 
osteomyelitis,  gathered  a  few  drops  of  pus  from  the  inside  and 
the  outside  of  the  bone,  and  again  found  clusters  of  microbes. 
Sown  into  a  culture  liquid,  this  microbe  seemed  so  identical 
with  the  furuncle  organism  that  ' '  it  might  be  affirmed  at 
first  sight,"  said  Pasteur,  "that  osteomyelitis  is  the  furuncle  of 
bones." 

The  hospital  now  took  as  much  place  in  Pasteur's  life  as  the 
laboratory.  "  Chamberland  and  I  assisted  him  in  those 
studies,"  writes  M.  Eoux.  "It  was  to  the  Hopital  Cochin 
or  to  the  Maternite  that  we  went  most  frequently,  taking  our 
culture  tubes  and  sterilized  pipets  into  the  wards  or  operating 
theatres.  No  one  knows  what  feelings  of  repulsion  Pasteur 
had  to  overcome  before  visiting  patients  and  witnessing  post- 
mortem examinations.  His  sensibility  was  extreme,  and  he 
suffered  morally  and  physically  from  the  pains  of  others ;  the 
cut  of  the  bistoury  opening  an  abscess  made  him  wince  as  if  he 
himself  had  received  it.  The  sight  of  corpses,  the  sad  business 
of  necropsies ,  caused  him  real  disgust ;  we  have  often  seen  him 
go  home  ill  from  those  operating  theatres.  But  his  love  of 
science ,  his  desire  for  truth  were  the  stronger ;  he  returned  the 
next  day." 

He  was  highly  interested  in  the  study  of  puerperal  fever, 
which  was  still  enveloped  in  profound  darkness.  Might  not 
the  application  of  his  theories  to  the  progress  of  surgery  be 
realized  in  obstetrics?  Could  not  those  epidemics  be  arrested 
which  passed  like  scourges  over  lying-in  hospitals  ?  It  was  still 
remembered  with  horror  how,  in  the  Paris  Maternity  Hos- 
pital, between  April  1  and  May  10,  1856,  64  fatalities  had  taken 
place  out  of  347  confinements.  The  hospital  had  to  be  closed, 
and  the  survivors  took  refuge  at  the  Lariboisiere  Hospital, 
where  they  nearly  all  succumbed,  pursued,  it  was  thought,  by 
the  epidemic. 

Dr.  Tarnier,  a  student  residing  at  the  Maternite  during  that 
disastrous  time,  related  afterwards  how  the  ignorance  of  the 
causes  of  puerperal  fever  was  such  that  he  was  sometimes  called 

u 


290  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

away,  by  one  of  his  chiefs,  from  some  post-mortem  business, 
to  assist  in  the  maternity  wards ;  nobody  being  struck  by  the 
thought  of  the  infection  which  might  thus  be  carried  from  the 
theatre  to  the  bed  of  the  patient. 

The  discussion  which  arose  in  1858  at  the  Academic  de  Mede- 
cine  lasted  four  months,  and  hypotheses  of  all  kinds  were 
brought  forward.  Trousseau  alone  showed  some  prescience  of 
the  future  by  noticing  an  analogy  between  infectious  surgical 
accidents  and  infectious  puerperal  accidents ;  the  idea  of  a  fer- 
ment even  occurred  to  him.  Years  passed  ;  women  of  the  lower 
classes  looked  upon  the  Maternite  as  the  vestibule  of  death. 
In  1864,  310  deaths  occurred  out  of  1,350  confinement  cases; 
in  1865,  the  hospital  had  to  be  closed.  Works  of  cleansjng  and 
improvements  gave  rise  to  a  hope  that  the  ' '  epidemic  genius 
might  be  driven  away.  "  But,  at  the  very  beginning  of  1866," 
wrote  Dr.  Trelat,  then  surgeon-in-chief  at  the  Maternite,  "the 
sanitary  condition  seemed  perturbed,  the  mortality  rose  in 
January,  and  in  February  we  were  overwhelmed."  Twenty- 
eight  deaths  had  occurred  out  of  103  cases. 

Trelat  enumerated  various  causes,  bad  ventilation,  neigh- 
bouring wards,  etc.,  but  where  was  the  origin  of  the 
evil? 

'^ Under  the  influence  of  causes  which  escape  us,"  wrote  M. 
Leon  Le  Fort  about  that  time,  "  puerperal  fever  develops  in  a 
recently  delivered  woman ;  she  becomes  a  centre  of  infection , 
and,  if  that  infection  is  freely  exercised,  the  epidemic  is  con- 
stituted." 

Tarnier,  who  took  Trelat's  place  at  the  Maternite,  in  1867, 
had  been  for  eleven  years  so  convinced  of  the  infectious  nature 
of  puerperal  fever  that  he  thought  but  of  arresting  the  evil  by 
every  possible  means  of  defence,  the  first  of  which  seemed  to 
him  isolation  of  the  patients. 

In  1874,  Dr.  Budin,  then  walking  the  hospitals,  had  noted  in 
Edinburgh  the  improvement  due  to  antisepsis,  thanks  to  Lister. 
Three  or  four  years  later,  in  1877  and  1878,  after  having  seen 
that,  in  the  various  maternity  hospitals  of  Holland,  Germany, 
Austria,  Russia  and  Denmark,  antisepsis  was  practised  with 
success,  he  brought  his  impressions  with  him  to  Paris.  Tarnier 
hastened  to  employ  carbolic  acid  at  the  Maternite  with  excel- 
lent results,  and  his  assistant,  M.  Bar,  tried  sublimate.  While 
that  new  period  of  victory  over  fatal  cases  was  beginning, 
Pasteur  came  to  the  Academic  de  Medecine,  having  found,  in 


1877—1879  291 

certain  puerperal  infections,  a  microbe  in  the  shape  of  a  chain 
or  chaplet,  which  lent  itself  very  well  to  culture. 

"  Pasteur,"  wrote  M.  Eoux,  "  does  not  hesitate  to  declare 
that  that  microscopic  organism  is  the  most  frequent  cause  of 
infection  in  recently  delivered  women.  One  day,  in  a  discus- 
sion on  puerperal  fever  at  the  Academy,  one  of  his  most  weighty 
colleagues  was  eloquently  enlarging  upon  the  causes  of  epi- 
demics in  lying-in  hospitals ;  Pasteur  interrupted  him  from  his 
place.  *  None  of  those  things  cause  the  epidemic ;  it  is  the 
nursing  and  medical  staff  who  carry  the  microbe  from  an  in- 
fected woman  to  a  healthy  one.'  And  as  the  orator  replied  that 
he  feared  that  microbe  would  never  be  found,  Pasteur  went  to 
the  blackboard  and  drew  a  diagram  of  the  chain-like  organism , 
saying  :  '  There,  that  is  what  it  is  like  !  '  His  conviction  was 
so  deep  that  he  could  not  help  expressing  it  forcibly.  It  would 
be  impossible  now  to  picture  the  state  of  surprise  and  stupe- 
faction into  which  he  would  send  the  students  and  doctors  in 
hospitals,  when,  with  an  assurance  and  simplicity  almost  dis- 
concerting in  a  man  who  was  entering  a  lying-in  ward  for  the 
first  time,  he  criticized  the  appliances,  and  declared  that  all  the 
linen  should  be  put  into  a  sterilizing  stove." 

Pasteur  was  not  satisfied  with  offering  advice  and  criticism, 
making  for  himself  irreconcilable  enemies  amongst  those  who 
were  more  desirous  of  personal  distinction  than  of  the  progress 
of  Science.  In  order  the  better  to  convince  those  who  still 
doubted,  he  affirmed  that,  in  a  badly  infected  patient — what  he 
usually  and  sorrowfully  called  an  invaded  patient — he  could 
bring  the  microbe  into  evidence  by  a  simple  pin  prick  on 
the  finger  tip  of  the  unhappy  woman  doomed  to  die  the  next 
day. 

"  And  he  did  so,"  writes  M.  Eoux.  ' '  In  spite  of  the  tyranny 
of  medical  education  which  weighed  down  the  public  mind, 
some  students  were  attracted,  and  came  to  the  laboratory  to 
examine  more  closely  those  matters,  which  allowed  of  such 
precise  diagnosis  and  such  confident  prognosis." 

What  struggles,  what  efforts,  were  necessary  before  it  could 
be  instilled  into  every  mind  that  a  constant  watch  must  be 
kept  in  the  presence  of  those  invisible  foes,  ready  to  invade 
the  human  body  through  the  least  scratch — that  surgeons, 
dressers  and  nurses  may  become  causes  of  infection  and  pro- 
pagators of  death  through  forgetfulness  !  and  before  the  theory 
of  germs  and  the  ail  powerfulness  of  microbes  could  be  put 

u  2 


292  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

under  a  full  light  a  propos  of  that  discussion  on  puerperal 
fever ! 

But  Pasteur  was  supported  and  inspired  during  that  period, 
perhaps  the  most  fruitful  of  his  existence,  by  the  prescience 
that  those  notions  meant  the  salvation  of  human  lives,  and  that 
mothers  need  no  longer  be  torn  by  death  from  the  cradle  of 
their  new-born  infants. 

' '  I  shall  force  them  to  see ;  they  will  have  to  see  !  "  he 
repeated  with  a  holy  wrath  against  doctors  who  continued  to 
talk,  from  their  study  or  at  their  clubs,  with  some  scepticism,  of 
those  newly  discovered  little  creatures,  of  those  ultra-microscopic 
parasites,  trying  to  moderate  enthusiasm  and  even  confidence. 

An  experimental  fact  which  occurred  about  that  time  was 
followed  with  interest,  not  only  by  the  Academic  des  Sciences, 
but  by  the  general  public,  whose  attention  was  beginning  to  be 
awakened.  A  professor  at  the  Nancy  Faculty,  M.  Feltz,  had 
announced  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences  in  March,  1879,  that, 
in  the  blood  abstracted  from  a  woman,  who  had  died  at  the 
Nancy  Hospital  of  puerperal  fever,  he  had  found  motionless 
filaments,  simple  or  articulated,  transparent,  straight  or  curved, 
which  belonged,  he  said,  to  the  genus  leptothrix.  Pasteur, 
who  in  his  studies  on  puerperal  fever  had  seen  nothing  of  the 
kind,  wrote  to  Dr.  Feltz,  asking  him  to  send  him  a  few  drops 
of  that  infected  blood.  After  receiving  and  examining  the 
sample,  Pasteur  hastened  to  inform  M.  Feltz  that  that  lepto- 
thrix was  no  other  than  the  bacillus  anthracis.  M.  Feltz, 
much  surprised  and  perplexed,  declared  himself  ready  to  own 
his  error  and  to  proclaim  it  if  he  were  convinced  by  examining 
blood  infected  by  charbon,  and  which,  he  said,  he  should  collect 
wherever  he  could  find  it.  Pasteur  desired  to  save  him  that 
trouble,  and  offered  to  send  him  three  little  guinea-pigs  alive, 
but  inoculated,  the  one  with  the  deceased  woman's  blood,  the 
other  with  the  bacteridia  of  charbon-infected  blood  from 
Chartres,  the  third  with  some  charbon-infected  blood  from  a 
Jura  cow. 

The  three  rodents  were  inoculated  on  May  12,  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  and  arrived,  living,  at  Nancy,  on  the  morning 
of  the  thirteenth.  They  died  on  the  fourteenth,  in  the  labora- 
tory of  M.  Feltz,  who  was  thus  able  to  observe  them  with  par- 
ticular attention  until  their  death. 

"After  carefully  examining  the  blood  of  the  three  animals 
after  their  death,  I  was  unable,"  said  M.  Feltz,  "  to  detect  the 


1877—1879 

least  difference;  not  only  the  blood,  but  the  internal  organs, 
and  notably  the  spleen,  were  affected  in  the  same  manner." 
.  .  .  "  It  is  a  certainty  to  my  mind,"  he  wrote  to  Pasteur, 
' '  that  the  contaminating  agent  has  been  the  same  in  the  three 
cases,  and  that  it  was  the  bacteridium  of  what  you  call 
anthrax." 

There  was  therefore  no  such  thing  as  a  leptothrix  puerperalis. 
And  it  was  at  a  distance ,  without  having  seen  the  patient ,  that 
Pasteur  said:  "That  woman  died  of  charbon."  With  an 
honourable  straightforwardness,  M.  Feltz  wrote  to  the 
Academie  des  Sciences  relating  the  facts. 

"  It  is  doubly  regrettable,"  he  concluded,  "  that  I  should  not 
have  known  charbon  already  last  year,  for,  on  the  one  hand, 
I  might  have  diagnosed  the  redoubtable  complication  presented 
by  the  case,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  sought  for  the  mode  of 
contamination,  which  at  present  escapes  me  almost  com- 
pletely." All  he  had  been  able  to  find  was  that  the  woman,  a 
charwoman,  lived  in  a  little  room  near  a  stable  belonging  to  a 
horse  dealer.  Many  animals  came  there ;  the  stable  might 
have  contained  diseased  ones ;  M.  Feltz  had  been  unable  to 
ascertain  the  fact.  "I  must  end,"  he  added,  "with  thanks 
to  M.  Pasteur  for  the  great  kindness  he  has  shown  me  during 
my  intercourse  with  him.  Thanks  to  him,  I  was  able  to  con- 
vince myself  of  the  identity  between  the  bacillus  anthracis  and 
the  bacteridium  found  in  the  blood  of  a  woman  who  presented 
all  the  symptoms  of  grave  puerperal  fever." 

At  the  time  when  that  convincing  episode  was  taking  place, 
other  experiments  equally  precise  were  being  undertaken  con- 
cerning splenic  fever.  The  question  was  to  discover  whether  it 
would  be  possible  to  find  germs  of  charbon  in  the  earth  of  the 
fields  which  had  been  contaminated  purposely,  fourteen  months 
before,  by  pouring  culture  liquids  over  it.  It  seemed  beyond  all 
probability  that  those  germs  might  be  withdrawn  and  isolated 
from  the  innumerable  other  microbes  contained  in  the  soil.  It 
was  done,  however;  600  grammes  of  earth  were  mixed  with 
water,  and  infinitesimal  particles  of  it  isolated.  The  spore  of 
the  bacillus  anthracis  resists  a  temperature  of  80°  C.  or  90°  C, 
which  would  kill  any  other  microbe ;  those  particles  of  earth 
were  accordingly  raised  to  that  degree  of  heat  and  then  injected 
into  some  guinea-pigs,  several  of  which  died  of  splenic  fever. 
It  was  therefore  evident  that  flocks  were  exposed  to  infection 
merely  by  grazing  over  certain  fields  in  that  land  of  the  Beauce. 


294  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

For  it  was  sufficient  that  some  infected  blood  should  have 
remained  on  the  ground,  for  germs  of  bacteridia  to  be  found 
there,  perhaps  years  later.  How  often  was  such  blood  spilt 
as  a  dead  animal  was  being  taken  to  the  knacker's  yard  or 
buried  on  the  spot !  Millions  of  bacteridia,  thus  scattered  on 
and  below  the  surface  of  the  soil,  produced  their  spores,  seeds 
of  death  ready  to  germinate. 

And  yet  negative  facts  were  being  opposed  to  these  positive 
facts,  and  the  theory  of  spontaneity  invoked!  "It  is  with 
deep  sorrow,"  said  Pasteur  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine  on 
November  11,  1873,  "that  I  so  frequently  find  myself  obliged 
to  answer  thoughtless  contradiction ;  it  also  grieves  me  much 
to  see  that  the  medical  Press  speaks  of  these  discussions  in 
apparent  ignorance  of  the  true  principles  of  experimental 
method.   .   .   . 

"  That  aimlessness  of  criticism  seems  explicable  to  me,  how- 
ever, by  this  circumstance — that  Medicine  and  Surgery  are,  I 
think,  going  through  a  crisis,  a  transition.  There  are  two  oppo- 
site currents,  that  of  the  old  and  that  of  the  new-born  doctrine  ; 
the  first,  still  followed  by  innumerable  partisans,  rests  on  the 
behef  in  the  spontaneity  of  transmissible  diseases ;  the  second 
is  the  theory  of  germs,  of  the  living  contagium  with  all  its 
legitimate  consequences.   ..." 

The  better  to  point  out  that  difference  between  epochs, 
Pasteur  respectfully  advised  M.  Bouillaud,  who  was  taking 
part  in  the  discussion,  to  read  over  Littre's  Medicine  and 
Physicians,  and  to  compare  with  present  ideas  the  chapter  on 
epidemics  written  in  1836,  four  years  after  the  cholera  which 
had  spread  terror  over  Paris  and  over  France.  "  Poisons  and 
venoms  die  out  on  the  spot  after  working  the  evil  which  is 
special  to  them,"'  wrote  Littre,  "  and  are  not  reproduced  in  the 
body  of  the  victim,  but  virus  and  miasmata  are  reproduced  and 
propagated.  Nothing  is  more  obscure  to  physiologists  than 
those  mysterious  combinations  of  organic  elements ;  but  there 
lies  the  dark  room  of  sickness  and  of  death  which  we  must  try 
to  open."  "  Among  epidemic  diseases,"  said  Littre  in  another 
passage  equally  noted  by  Pasteur,  "  some  occupy  the  world  and 
decimate  nearly  all  parts  of  it,  others  are  limited  to  more  or 
less  wide  areas.  The  origin  of  the  latter  may  be  sought  either 
in  local  circumstances  of  dampness,  of  marshy  ground,  of 
decomposing  animal  or  vegetable  matter,  or  in  the  changes 
which  take  place  in  men's  mode  of  life." 


1877—1879  295 

"  If  I  had  to  defend  the  novelty  of  the  ideas  introduced  into 
medicine  by  my  labours  of  the  last  twenty  years,"  wrote  Pasteur 
from  Arbois  in  September,  1879,  "I  should  invoke  the  sig- 
nificant spirit  of  Littre's  words.  Such  was  then  the  state  of 
Science  in  1836,  and  those  ideas  on  the  etiology  of  great  epi- 
demics were  those  of  one  of  the  most  advanced  and  penetrating 
minds  of  the  time.  I  would  observe,  contrarily  to  Littre's 
opinion,  that  nothing  proves  the  spontaneity  of  great  epi- 
demics !  As  we  have  lately  seen  the  phylloxera,  imported  from 
America,  invade  Europe,  so  it  might  be  that  the  causes  of 
great  pests  were  originated,  unknowingly  to  stricken  countries, 
in  other  countries  which  had  had  fortuitous  contact  witH  the 
latter.  Imagine  a  microscopic  being,  inhabiting  some  part  of 
Africa  and  existing  on  plants ,  on  animals ,  or  even  on  men ,  and 
capable  of  communicating  a  disease  to  the  white  race ;  if 
brought  to  Europe  by  some  fortuitous  circumstance,  it  may 
become  the  occasion  of  an  epidemic.   ..." 

And,  vtriting  later,  about  the  same  passage:  "Nowadays, 
if  an  article  had  to  be  written  on  the  same  subject,  it  would 
certainly  be  the  idea  of  living  ferments  and  microscopic  beings 
and  germs  which  would  be  mentioned  and  discussed  as  a  cause. 
That  is  the  great  progress,"  added  Pasteur  with  legitimate 
pride,  "  in  which  my  labours  have  had  so  large  a  share.  But 
it  is  characteristic  of  Science  and  Progress  that  they  go  on 
opening  new  fields  to  our  vision  ;  the  scientist,  who  is  exploring 
the  unknown,  resembles  the  traveller  who  perceives  further 
and  higher  summits  as  he  reaches  greater  altitudes.  In  these 
days,  more  infectious  diseases,  more  microscopic  beings  appear  to 
the  mind  as  things  to  be  discovered,  the  discovery  of  which  will 
render  a  wonderful  account  of  pathological  conditions  and  of 
their  means  of  action  and  propagation,  of  self -multiplication 
within  and  destruction  of  the  organism.  The  point  of  view  is 
very  different  from  Littre's!  !  " 

On  his  return  to  Paris,  Pasteur,  his  mind  overflowing  with 
ideas,  had  felt  himself  impelled  to  speak  again,  to  fight  once 
more  the  fallacious  theory  of  the  spontaneity  of  transmissible 
diseases.  He  foresaw  the  triumph  of  the  germ  theory  arising 
from  the  ruin  of  the  old  doctrines — at  the  price,  it  is  true,  of 
many  efforts,  many  struggles,  but  those  were  of  little  conse- 
quence to  him. 

The  power  of  his  mind,  the  radiating  gifts  that  he  possessed, 
were  such  that  his  own  people  were  more  and  more  interested 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

in  the  laboratory ,  every  one  trying  day  by  day  to  penetrate  fur- 
ther into  Pasteur's  thoughts.  His  family  circle  had  widened ; 
his  son  and  his  daughter  had  married,  and  the  two  new-comers 
had  soon  been  initiated  into  past  results  and  recent  experi- 
ments. He  had,  in  his  childhood  and  youth,  been  passionately 
loved  by  his  parents  and  sisters,  and  now,  in  his  middle  age,  his 
tenderness  towards  his  wife  and  children  was  eagerly  repaid  by 
the  love  they  bore  him.  He  made  happiness  around  him  whilst 
he  gave  glory  to  France. 


CHAPTEE    X 

1880—1882. 

A  NEW  microbe  now  became  the  object  of  the  same  studies 
of  culture  and  inoculation  as  the  bacillus  anthracis.  Readers 
of  this  book  may  have  had  occasion  to  witness  the  disasters 
caused  in  a  farmyard  by  a  strange  and  sudden  epidemic. 
Hens,  believed  to  be  good  sitters,  are  found  dead  on  their  nests. 
Others,  surrounded  by  their  brood,  allow  the  chicks  to  leave 
them,  giving  them  no  attention;  they  stand  motionless  in  the 
centre  of  the  yard,  staggering  under  a  deadly  drowsiness.  A 
young  and  superb  cock,  whose  triumphant  voice  was  yesterday 
heard  by  all  the  neighbours,  falls  into  a  sudden  agony,  his  beak 
closed,  his  eyes  dim,  his  purple  comb  drooping  limply.  Other 
chickens,  respited  till  the  next  day,  come  near  the  dying  and 
the  dead,  picking  here  and  there  grains  soiled  with  excreta  con- 
taining the  deadly  germs  :  it  is  chicken  cholera. 

An  Alsatian  veterinary  surgeon  of  the  name  of  Moritz  had 
been  the  first  to  notice,  in  1869,  some  "  granulations  "  in  the 
corpses  of  animals  struck  down  by  this  lightning  disease,  which 
sometimes  kills  as  many  as  ninety  chickens  out  of  a  hundred, 
those  who  survive  having  probably  recovered  from  a  slight 
attack  of  the  cholera.  Nine  years  after  Moritz,  Perroncito,  an 
Italian  veterinary  surgeon,  made  a  sketch  of  the  microbe, 
which  has  the  appearance  of  little  specks.  Toussaint  studied 
it,  and  demonstrated  that  this  microbe  was  indeed  the  cause  of 
virulence  in  the  blood.  He  sent  to  Pasteur  the  head  of  a  cock 
that  had  died  of  cholera.  The  first  thing  to  do,  after  isolating 
the  microbe ,  was  to  try  successive  cultures ;  Toussaint  had 
used  neutralized  urine.  This,  though  perfect  for  the  culture  of 
the  bacillus  anthracis,  proved  a  bad  culture  medium  for  the 
microbe  of  chicken  cholera ;  its  multiplication  soon  became 
arrested.     If  sown  in  a  small  flask  of  yeast  water,  equally  fav- 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

ourable  to  bacteridia,  the  result  was  worse  still  :  the  microbe 
disappeared  in  forty-eight  hours. 

"Is  not  that,"  said  Pasteur — with  the  gift  of  comparison 
which  made  him  turn  each  failure  into  food  for  reflection — "  an 
image  of  what  we  observe  when  a  microscopic  organism  proves 
to  be  harmless  to  a  particular  animal  species?  It  is  harmless 
because  it  does  not  develop  within  the  body,  or  because  its 
development  does  not  reach  the  organs  essential  to  life." 

After  trying  other  culture  mediums,  Pasteur  found  that  the 
one  which  answered  best  was  a  broth  of  chicken  gristle, 
neutralized  w^ith  potash  and  sterilized  by  a  temperature  of 
110°  C.  to  115°  C. 

"  The  facility  of  multiplication  of  the  micro-organism  in 
that  culture  medium  is  really  prodigious,"  wrote  Pasteur  in  a 
duplicate  communication  to  the  Academies  of  Sciences  and  of 
Medicine  (February,  1880),  entitled  Of  Virulent  Diseases,  and 
in  'particular  that  commonly  called  Chicken  Cholera.  "  In  a 
few  hours,  the  most  limpid  broth  becomes  turgid  and  is  found 
to  be  full  of  little  articles  of  an  extreme  tenuity,  slightly 
strangled  in  their  middle  and  looking  at  first  sight  like  isolated 
specks  ;  they  are  incapable  of  locomotion.  Within  a  few  days, 
those  beings,  already  so  small,  change  into  a  multitude  of 
specks  so  much  smaller,  that  the  culture  liquid,  which  had  at 
first  become  turgid,  almost  milky,  becomes  nearly  clear  again, 
the  specks  being  of  such  narrow  diameter  as  to  be  impossible  to 
measure,  even  approximately. 

This  microbe  certainly  belongs  to  quite  another  group  than 
that  of  the  vibriones.  I  imagine  that  it  will  one  day  find  a 
place  with  the  still  mysterious  virus,  when  the  latter  are  suc- 
cessfully cultivated,  which  will  be  soon,  I  hope." 

Pasteur  stated  that  the  virulence  of  this  microbe  was  such 
that  the  smallest  drop  of  recent  culture,  on  a  few  crumbs,  was 
sufficient  to  kill  a  chicken.  Hens  fed  in  this  way  contracted 
the  disease  by  their  intestinal  canal,  an  excellent  culture 
medium  for  the  micro-organism,  and  perished  rapidly.  Their 
infected  excreta  became  a  cause  of  contagion  to  the  hens  which 
shared  with  them  the  laboratory  cages.  Pasteur  thus 
described  one  of  these  sick  hens — 

"  The  animal  suffering  from  this  disease  is  powerless,  stag- 
gering, its  wings  droop  and  its  bristling  feathers  give  it  the 
shape  of  a  ball ;  an  irresistible  somnolence  overpowers  it.  If 
its  eyes  are  made  to  open,  it  seems  to  awake  from  a  deep  sleep, 


1880—1882  299 

and  death  frequently  supervenes  after  a  dumb  agony,  before 
the  animal  has  stirred  from  its  place  ;  sometimes  there  is  a 
faint  fluttering  of  the  wings  for  a  few  seconds." 

Pasteur  tried  the  effect  of  this  microbe  on  guinea-pigs  which 
had  been  brought  up  in  the  laboratory ,  and  found  it  but  rarely 
mortal ;  in  general  it  merely  caused  a  sore ,  terminating  in  an 
abscess,  at  the  point  of  inoculation.  If  this  abscess  were 
opened,  instead  of  being  allowed  to  heal  of  its  own  accord,  the 
httle  microbe  of  chicken  cholera  was  to  be  found  in  the  pus, 
preserved  in  the  abscess  as  it  might  be  in  a  phial. 

"Chickens  or  rabbits,"  remarked  Pasteur,  "living  in  the 
society  of  guinea-pigs  presenting  these  abscesses,  might  sud- 
denly become  ill  and  die  without  any  alteration  being  seen  in 
the  guinea-pigs'  health.  It  would  suffice  for  this  purpose  that 
those  abscesses  should  open  and  drop  some  of  their  contents 
on  the  food  of  the  chickens  and  rabbits. 

' '  An  observer  witnessing  those  facts ,  and  ignorant  of  the 
above-mentioned  cause,  would  be  astonished  to  see  hens  and 
rabbits  decimated  without  apparent  cause,  and  would  believe 
in  the  spontaneity  of  the  evil ;  for  he  would  be  far  from  sup- 
posing that  it  had  its  origin  in  the  guinea-pigs,  all  of  them  in 
good  health.  How  many  mysteries  in  the  history  of  con- 
tagions will  one  day  be  solved  as  simply  as  this  !  !  !  " 

A  chance,  such  as  happens  to  those  who  have  the  genius  of 
observation,  was  now  about  to  mark  an  immense  step  in 
advance  and  prepare  the  way  for  a  great  discovery.  As  long 
as  the  culture  flasks  of  chicken-cholera  microbe  had  been  sown 
without  interruption,  at  twenty -four  hours'  interval,  the 
virulence  had  remained  the  same ;  but  when  some  hens  were 
inoculated  with  an  old  culture,  put  away  and  forgotten  a  few 
weeks  before,  they  were  seen  with  surprise  to  become  ill  and 
then  to  recover.  These  unexpectedly  refractory  hens  were 
then  inoculated  with  some  new  culture,  but  the  phenomenon 
of  resistance  recurred.  What  had  happened?  What  could 
have  attenuated  the  activity  of  the  microbe  ?  Eesearches 
proved  that  oxygen  was  the  cause ;  and,  by  putting  between 
the  cultures  variable  intervals  of  days,  of  one,  two  or  three 
months,  variations  of  mortality  were  obtained,  eight  hens  dying 
out  of  ten,  then  five,  then  only  one  out  of  ten^  and  at  last, 
when,  as  in  the  first  case,  the  culture  had  had  time  to  get  stale, 
no  hens  died  at  all,  though  the  microbe  could  still  be  cultivated. 

"  Finally,"    said  Pasteur,   eagerly   explaining   this   pheno- 


300  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

menon,  "  if  you  take  each  of  these  attenuated  cultures  as  a 
starting-point  for  successive  and  uninterrupted  cultures,  all 
this  series  of  cultures  will  reproduce  the  attenuated  virulence 
of  that  which  served  as  the  starting-point ;  in  the  same  way 
non-virulence  will  reproduce  non-virulence." 

And ,  while  hens  who  had  never  had  chicken-cholera  perished 
when  exposed  to  the  deadly  virus,  those  who  had  undergone 
attenuated  inoculations,  and  who  afterwards  received  more 
than  their  share  of  the  deadly  virus,  were  affected  with  the 
disease  in  a  benign  form,  a  passing  indisposition,  sometimes 
even  they  remained  perfectly  well ;  they  had  acquired 
immunity.  Was  not  this  fact  worthy  of  being  placed  by  the 
side  of  that  great  fact  of  vaccine,  over  which  Pasteur  had  so 
often  pondered  and  meditated? 

He  now  felt  that  he  might  entertain  the  hope  of  obtaining, 
through  artificial  culture,  some  vaccinating-virus  against  the 
virulent  diseases  which  cause  great  losses  to  agriculture  in  the 
breeding  of  domestic  animals,  and,  beyond  that,  the  greater 
hope  of  preserving  humanity  from  those  contagious  diseases 
which  continually  decimate  it.  This  invincible  hope  led  him 
to  wish  that  he  might  live  long  enough  to  accomplish  some  new 
discoveries  and  to  see  his  followers  step  into  the  road  he  had 
marked  out. 

Strong  in  his  experimental  method  which  enabled  him  to 
produce  proofs  and  thus  to  demonstrate  the  truth ;  able  to 
establish  the  connection  between  a  virulent  and  a  microbian 
disease;  finally,  ready  to  reproduce  by  culture,  in  several 
degrees  of  attenuation,  a  veritable  vaccine,  could  he  not  now 
force  those  of  his  opponents  who  were  acting  in  good  faith  to 
acknowledge  the  evidence  of  facts?  Could  he  not  carry  all 
attentive  minds  with  him  into  the  great  movement  which  was 
about  to  replace  old  ideas  by  new  and  precise  notions,  more 
and  more  accessible? 

Pasteur  enjoyed  days  of  incomparable  happiness  during  that 
period  of  enthusiasm,  joys  of  the  mind  in  its  full  power,  joys  of 
the  heart  in  all  its  expansion ;  for  good  was  being  done.  He 
felt  that  nothing  could  arrest  the  course  of  his  doctrine,  of 
which  he  said — "  The  breath  of  Truth  is  carrying  it  towards 
the  fruitful  fields  of  the  future."  He  had  that  intuition  which 
makes  a  great  poet  of  a  great  scientist.  The  innumerable  ideas 
surging  through  his  mind  were  like  so  many  bees  all  trying  to 
issue  from  the  hive  at  the  same  time.  So  many  plans  and  pre- 
conceived ideas  only  stimulated  him  to  further  researches ;  but , 


1880—1882  301 

when  he  was  once  started  on  a  road,  he  distrusted  each  step 
and  only  progressed  in  the  train  of  precise,  clear  and  irrefutable 
experiments. 

A  paper  of  his  on  the  plague,  dated  April,  1880,  illustrates 
his  train  of  thought.  The  preceding  year  the  Academy  of 
Medicine  had  appointed  a  commission  composed  of  eight 
members,  to  draw  up  a  programme  of  research  relative  to  the 
plague.  The  scourge  had  appeared  in  a  village  situated  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Volga,  in  the  district  of  Astrakhan.  There 
had  been  one  isolated  case  at  first,  followed  ten  days  later  by 
another  death  ;  the  dread  disease  had  then  invaded  and  devoured 
the  whole  village,  going  from  house  to  house  like  an  inextin- 
guishable fire  ;  370  deaths  had  occurred  in  a  population  of  1,372 
inhabitants ;  thirty  or  forty  people  died  every  day.  In  one  of 
those  sinister  moments  when  men  forget  everything  in  their 
desire  to  live,  parents  and  relations  had  abandoned  their  sick 
and  dying  among  the  unburied  dead,  with  20°  C.  of  frost !  ! 
The  neighbouring  villages  were  contaminated ;  but ,  thanks  to 
the  Eussian  authorities,  who  had  established  a  strict  sanitary 
cordon,  the  evil  was  successfully  localized.  Some  doctors, 
meeting  in  Vienna,  declared  that  that  plague  was  no  other 
than  the  Black  Death  of  the  fourteenth  century,  which  had  de- 
populated Europe.  The  old  pictures  and  sculptures  of  the 
time,  which  represent  Death  pressing  into  his  lugubrious  gang 
children  and  old  men,  beggars  and  emperors,  bear  witness  to 
the  formidable  ravages  of  such  a  scourge.  In  France,  since 
the  epidemic  at  Marseilles  in  1720,  it  seemed  as  if  the  plague 
were  but  a  memory,  a  distant  nightmare,  almost  a  horrible 
fairy  tale.  Dr.  Eochard,  in  a  report  to  the  Academic  de 
Medecine,  recalled  how  the  contagion  had  burst  out  in  May, 
1720;  a  ship,  having  lost  six  men  from  the  plague  on  its 
journey,  had  entered  Marseilles  harbour.  The  plague,  after 
an  insidious  first  phase,  had  raged  in  all  its  fury  in  July. 

"  Since  the  plague  is  a  disease,"  wrote  Pasteur  (whose  paper 
waS'  a  sort  of  programme  of  studies) ,  ' '  the  cause  of  which  is 
absolutely  unknown,  it  is  not  illogical  to  suppose  that  it  too  is 
perhaps  produced  by  a  special  microbe.  All  experimental 
research  must  be  guided  by  some  preconceived  ideas,  and  it 
would  probably  be  very  useful  to  tackle  the  study  of  that  disease 
with  the  belief  that  it  is  due  to  a  parasite. 

"  The  most  decisive  of  all  the  proofs  which  can  be  invoked 
in  favour  of  the  possible  correlation  between  a  determined 
affection  and  the  presence  of  a  micro-organism,  is  that  afforded 


302  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

by  the  method  of  cultures  of  organisms  in  a  state  of  purity  ;  a 
method  by  which  I  have  solved,  within  the  last  twenty -two 
years,  the  chief  difficulties  relative  to  fermentations  properly 
so  called;  notably  the  important  question,  much  debated  for- 
merly, of  the  correlation  which  exists  between  those  fermenta- 
tions and  their  particular  ferments." 

He  then  pointed  out  that  if,  after  gathering  either  blood  or 
pus  immediately  before  or  immediately  after  the  death  of  a 
plague  patient,  one  could  succeed  in  discovering  the  micro- 
organism, and  then  in  finding  for  that  microbe  an  appropriate 
culture  medium ,  it  would  be  advisable  to  inoculate  with  it  ani- 
mals of  various  kinds,  perhaps  monkeys  for  preference,  and  to 
look  for  the  lesions  capable  of  establishing  relations  from  cause 
to  effect  between  that  organism  and  the  disease  in  mankind. 

He  did  not  hide  from  himself  the  great  difficulties  to  be  met 
with  in  experimenting ;  for,  after  discovering  and  isolating  the 
organism,  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  a  priori  to  the  experi- 
mentalist an  appropriate  culture  medium.  Liquids  which  suit 
some  microbes  admirably  are  absolutely  unsuitable  to  others. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  microbe  of  chicken-cholera,  which  will 
not  develop  in  beer  yeast ;  a  hasty  experimentalist  might  con- 
clude that  the  chicken-cholera  is  not  produced  by  a  micro- 
organism, and  that  it  is  a  spontaneous  disease  with  unknown 
immediate  causes.  "The  fallacy  would  be  a  fatal  one,"  said 
Pasteur,  "  for  in  another  medium,  say,  for  instance,  in 
chicken-broth,  there  would  be  a  virulent  culture." 

In  these  researches  on  the  plague,  then,  various  mediums 
should  be  tried  ;  also  the  character,  either  aerobic  or  anaerobic, 
of  the  microbe  should  be  present  to  the  mind. 

' '  The  sterility  of  a  culture  liquid  may  come  from  the  presence 
of  air  and  not  from  its  own  constitution ;  the  septic  vibrio,  for 
instance,  is  killed  by  oxygen  in  air.  From  this  last  circum- 
stance it  is  plain  that  culture  must  be  made  not  only  in  the 
presence  of  air  but  also  in  a  vacuum  or  in  the  presence 
of  pure  carbonic  acid  gas.  In  the  latter  case,  imme- 
diately after  sowing  the  blood  or  humour  to  be  tested,  a 
vacuum  must  be  made  in  the  tubes,  they  must  be  sealed  by 
means  of  a  lamp,  and  left  in  a  suitable  temperature,  usually 
between  30°  C.  and  40°  C."  Thus  he  prepared  landmarks  for 
the  guidance  of  scientific  research  on  the  etiology  of  the  plague. 

Desiring  as  Pasteur  did  that  the  public  in  general  should  take 


1880—1882  303 

an  interest  in  laboratory  research,  he  sent  to  his  friend  Nisard 
the  number  of  the  Bulletin  of  the  Academie  de  Medecine 
which  contained  a  first  communication  on  chicken-cholera,  and 
also  his  paper  on  the  plague. 

"  Eead  them  if  you  have  time,"  he  wrote  (May  3,  1880)  : 
"  they  may  interest  you,  and  there  should  he  no  blanks  in  your 
education.     They  will  be  followed  by  others. 

To-day  at  the  Institute ,  and  to-morrow  at  the  Academie  de 
Medecine,  I  shall  give  a  new  lecture. 

Do  repeat  to  me  every  criticism  you  hear ;  I  much  prefer 
them  to  praise,  barren  unless  encouragement  is  wanted,  which 
is  certainly  not  my  case  ;  I  have  a  lasting  provision  of  faith  and 
fire." 

Nisard  answered  on  May  7  :  "  My  very  dear  friend,  I  am 
almost  dazed  with  the  effort  made  by  my  ignorance  to  follow 
your  ideas,  and  dazzled  with  the  beauty  of  your  discoveries  on 
the  principal  point,  and  the  number  of  secondary  discoveries 
enumerated  in  your  marvellous  paper.  You  are  right  not  to 
care  for  barren  praise ;  but  you  would  wrong  those  who  love 
you  if  you  found  no  pleasure  in  being  praised  by  them  when 
they  have  no  other  means  of  acknowledging  your  notes. 

' '  I  am  reading  the  notice  on  chicken-cholera  for  the  second 
time,  and  I  observe  that  the  writer  is  following  the  discoverer, 
and  that  your  language  becomes  elevated,  supple  and  coloured, 
in  order  to  express  the  various  aspects  of  the  subject. 

*'  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  see  the  daily  growth  of  your  fame, 
and  I  am  indeed  proud  of  enjoying  your  friendship." 

Amidst  his  researches  on  a  vaccine  for  chicken-cholera,  the 
etiology  of  splenic  fever  was  unceasingly  preoccupying  Pasteur. 
Did  the  splenic  germs  return  to  the  surface  of  the  soil,  and 
how?  One  day,  in  one  of  his  habitual  excursions  with  Messrs. 
Eoux  and  Chamberland  to  the  farm  of  St.  Germain,  near 
Chartres,  he  suddenly  perceived  an  answer  to  that  enigma. 
In  a  field  recently  harvested,  he  noticed  a  place  where  the 
colour  of  the  soil  differed  a  little  from  the  neighbouring  earth. 
He  questioned  M.  Maunoury,  the  proprietor  of  the  farm,  who 
answered  that  sheep  dead  of  anthrax  had  been  buried  there  the 
preceding  year.  Pasteur  drew  nearer,  and  was  interested  by 
the  mass  of  little  earth  cylinders,  those  little  twists  which  earth- 
worms deposit  on  the  ground.  Might  that  be,  he  wondered, 
the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  germs  which  reappear  on 
the  surface?     Might  not  the  worms,  returning  from  their  sub- 


304  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

terranean  journeys  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  graves, 
bring  back  with  them  splenic  spores,  and  thus  scatter  the  germs 
so  exhumed?  That  would  again  be  a  singular  revelation,  un- 
expected but  quite  simple,  due  to  the  germ  theory.  He  wasted 
no  time  in  dreaming  of  the  possibilities  opened  by  that  precon- 
ceived idea,  but,  with  his  usual  impatience  to  get  at  the  truth, 
decided  to  proceed  to  experiment. 

On  his  return  to  Paris  Pasteur  spoke  to  Bouley  of  this  pos- 
sible part  of  germ  carriers  played  by  earthworms,  and  Bouley 
caused  some  to  be  gathered  which  had  appeared  on  the  surface 
of  pits  where  animals  dead  of  splenic  fever  had  been  buried 
some  years  before.  Villemin  and  Davaine  were  invited  as  well 
as  Bouley  to  come  to  the  laboratory  and  see  the  bodies  of  these 
worms  opened  ;  anthrax  spores  were  found  in  the  earth  cylinders 
which  filled  their  intestinal  tube. 

At  the  time  when  Pasteur  revealed  this  pathogenic  action 
of  the  earthworm,  Darwin,  in  his  last  book,  was  expounding 
their  share  in  agriculture.  He  too,  with  his  deep  attention  and 
force  of  method,  able  to  discover  the  hidden  importance  of  what 
seemed  of  little  account  to  second-rate  minds,  had  seen  how 
earthworms  open  their  tunnels,  and  how,  by  turning  over  the 
soil,  and  by  bringing  so  many  particles  up  to  the  surface  by 
their  "castings,"  they  ventilate  and  drain  the  soil,  and,  by 
their  incessant  and  continuous  work,  render  great  services  to 
agriculture.  These  excellent  labourers  are  redoubtable  grave- 
diggers ;  each  of  those  two  tasks,  the  one  beneficent  and  the 
other  full  of  perils ,  was  brought  to  light  by  Pasteur  and  Darwin , 
unknowingly  to  each  other. 

Pasteur  had  gathered  earth  from  the  pits  where  splenic  cows 
had  been  buried  in  July,  1878,  in  the  Jura.  "  At  three  different 
times  within  those  two  years,"  he  said  to  the  Academie  des 
Sciences  and  to  the  Academie  de  Medecine  in  July,  1880,  "  the 
surface  soil  of  those  same  pits  has  presented  charbon  spores." 
This  fact  had  been  confirmed  by  recent  experiments  on  the 
soil  of  the  Beauce  farm  ;  particles  of  earth  from  other  parts 
of  the  field  had  no  power  of  provoking  splenic  fever. 

Pasteur,  going  on  to  practical  advice,  showed  how  grazing 
animals  might  find  in  certain  places  the  germs  of  charbon, 
freed  by  the  loosening  by  rain  of  the  little  castings  of  earth- 
worms. Animals  are  wont  to  choose  the  surface  of  the  pits, 
where  the  soil,  being  richer  in  humus,  produces  thicker  growth, 


1880—1882  305 

and  in  so  doing  risk  their  lives,  for  they  become  infected,  some- 
what in  the  same  manner  as  in  the  experiments  when  their 
forage  was  poisoned  with  a  few  drops  of  splenic  culture  liquid. 
Septic  germs  are  brought  to  the  surface  of  the  soil  in  the  same 
way. 

"Animals,"  said  Pasteur,  "should  never  be  buried  in 
fields  intended  for  pasture  or  the  growing  of  hay.  When- 
ever it  is  possible,  burying-grounds  should  be  chosen  in  sandy 
or  chalky  soils,  poor,  dry,  and  unsuitable  to  the  life  of  earth- 
worms." 

Pasteur,  like  a  general  with  only  two  aides  de  camp,  was 
obliged  to  direct  the  efforts  of  Messrs.  Chamberland  and  Eoux 
simultaneously  in  different  parts  of  France.  Sometimes  facts 
had  to  be  checked  which  had  been  over-hastily  announced  by 
rash  experimentalists.  Thus  M.  Koux  went,  towards  the  end 
of  the  month  of  July,  to  an  isolated  property  near  Nancy,  called 
Bois  le  Due  Farm,  to  ascertain  whether  the  successive  deaths 
of  nineteen  head  of  cattle  were  really,  as  affirmed,  due  to 
splenic  fever.  The  water  of  this  pasture  was  alleged  to  be 
contaminated ;  the  absolute  isolation  of  the  herd  seemed  to 
exclude  all  idea  of  contagion.  After  collecting  water  and 
earth  from  various  points  on  the  estate  M.  Eoux  had  returned 
to  the  laboratory  with  his  tubes  and  pipets.  He  was  much 
inclined  to  believe  that  there  had  been  septicaemia  and  not 
splenic  fever. 

M.  Chamberland  was  at  Savagna^  near  Lons-le-Saulnier, 
where,  in  order  to  experiment  on  the  contamination  of  the  sur- 
face of  pits,  he  had  had  a  little  enclosure  traced  out  and 
surrounded  by  an  open  paling  in  a  meadow  where  victims  of 
splenic  fever  had  been  buried  two  years  previously.  Four 
sheep  were  folded  in  this  enclosure.  Another  similar  fold,  also 
enclosing  four  sheep,  was  placed  a  few  yards  above  the  first 
one.  This  experiment  was  intended  to  occupy  the  vacation, 
and  Pasteur  meant  to  watch  it  from  Arbois. 

A  great  sorrow  awaited  him  there.  "  I  have  just  had  the 
misfortune  of  losing  my  sister,"  he  wrote  to  Nisard  at  the 
beginning  of  August,  "  to  see  whom  (as  also  my  parents'  and 
children's  graves)  I  returned  yearly  to  Arbois.  Within  forty- 
eight  hours  I  witnessed  life,  sickness,  death  and  burial;  such 
rapidity  is  terrifying.  I  deeply  loved  my  sister,  who,  in  diffi- 
cult times,  when  modest  ease  even  did  not  reign  in  our  home, 
carried  the  heavy  burden  of  the  day  and  devoted  herself  to  the 


306  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

little  ones  of  whom  I  was  one.  I  am  now  the  only  survivor  of 
my  paternal  and  maternal  families." 

In  the  first  days  of  August,  Toussaint,  the  young  professor 
of  the  Toulouse  Veterinary  School,  declared  that  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  vaccinating  sheep  against  splenic  fever.  One  process 
of  vaccination  (which  consisted  in  collecting  the  blood  of  an 
animal  affected  with  charbon  just  before  or  immediately  after 
death,  dehbrinating  it  and  then  passing  it  through  a  piece  of 
linen  and  filtering  it  through  ten  or  twelve  sheets  of  paper)  had 
been  unsuccessful ;  the  bacteridia  came  through  it  all  and 
killed  instead  of  preserving  the  animal.  Toussaint  then  had 
recourse  to  heat  to  kill  the  bacteridia  :  "  I  raised,"  he  said, 
"the  defibrinated  blood  to  a  heat  of  55°  C.  for  ten  minutes; 
the  result  was  complete.  Five  sheep  inoculated  with  three 
cubic  cent,  of  that  blood,  and  afterwards  with  very  active 
charbon  blood,  have  not  felt  it  in  the  least."  However,  several 
successive  inoculations  had  to  be  made. 

' '  All  ideas  of  holidays  must  be  postponed ;  we  must  set  to 
work  in  Jura  as  well  as  in  Paris,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  assist- 
ants. Bouley,  who  thought  that  the  goal  was  reached,  did  not 
hide  from  himself  the  difficulties  of  interpretation  of  the  alleged 
fact.  He  obtained  from  the  Minister  of  Agriculture  permission 
to  try  at  Alfort  this  so-called  vaccinal  liquid  on  twenty  sheep. 

"Yesterday,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  son-in-law  on  August 
13,  "I  went  to  give  M.  Chamberland  instructions  so  that  I 
may  verify  as  soon  as  possible  the  Toussaint  fact,  which  I  will 
only  believe  when  I  have  seen  it,  seen  it  with  my  own  eyes. 
I  am  having  twenty  sheep  bought,  and  I  hope  to  be  satisfied  as 
to  the  exactitude  of  this  really  extraordinary  observation  in 
about  three  weeks'  time.  Nature  may  have  mystified  M. 
Toussaint,  though  his  assertions  seem  to  attest  the  existence  of 
a  very  interesting  fact." 

Toussaint's  assertion  had  been  hasty,  and  Pasteur  was  not 
long  in  clearing  up  that  point.  The  temperature  of  55°  C. 
prolonged  for  ten  minutes  was  not  sufficient  to  kill  the  bac- 
teridia in  the  blood ;  they  were  but  weakened  and  retarded  in 
their  development ;  even  after  fifteen  minutes'  exposure  to 
the  heat,  there  was  but  a  numbness  of  the  bacteridium.  Whilst 
these  experiments  were  being  pursued  in  the  Jura  and  in  the 
laboratory  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  the  Alfort  sheep  were  giving 
Bouley  great  anxiety.  One  died  of  charbon  one  day  after 
inoculation,  three  two  days  later.     The  others  were  so  ill  that 


1880—1882  307 

M.  Nocard  wanted  to  sacrifice  one  in  order  to  proceed  to 
immediate  necropsy ;  Bouley  apprehended  a  complete  disaster. 
But  the  sixteen  remaining  sheep  recovered  gradually  and 
became  ready  for  the  counter  test  of  charbon  inoculation. 

Whilst  Pasteur  was  noting  the  decisive  points,  he  heard 
from  Bouley  and  from  Eoux  at  the  same  time,  that  Toussaint 
now  obtained  his  vaccinal  liquid,  no  longer  by  the  action  of 
heat,  but  by  the  measured  action  of  carbolic  acid  on  splenic 
fever  blood.  The  interpretation  by  weakening  remained  the 
same. 

' '  What  ought  we  to  conclude  from  that  result  ?  ' '  wrote 
Bouley  to  Pasteur.  "It  is  evident  that  Toussaint  does  not 
vaccinate  as  he  thought,  with  a  liquid  destitute  of  bacteridia, 
since  he  gives  charbon  with  that  liquid ;  but  that  he  uses  a 
liquid  in  which  the  power  of  the  bacteridium  is  reduced  by 
the  diminished  number  and  the  attenuated  activity.  His  vac- 
cine must  then  only  be  charbon  liquid  of  which  the  intensity 
of  action  may  be  weakened  to  the  point  of  not  being  mortal  to 
a  certain  number  of  susceptible  animals  receiving  it.  But  it 
may  be  a  most  treacherous  vaccine ,  in  that  it  might  be  capable 
of  recuperating  its  power  with  time.  The  Alfort  experiment 
makes  it  probable  that  the  vaccine  tested  at  Toulouse  and  found 
to  be  harmless,  had  acquired  in  the  lapse  of  twelve  days  before 
it  was  tried  at  Alfort,  a  greater  intensity,  because  the  bac- 
teridium, numbed  for  a  time  by  carbolic  acid,  had  had  time  to 
awaken  and  to  swarm,  in  spite  of  the  acid." 

Whilst  Toussaint  had  gone  to  Eheims  (where  sat  the  French 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science)  to  state  that  it 
was  not,  as  he  had  announced,  the  liquid  which  placed  the 
animal  into  conditions  of  relative  immunity  and  to  epitomize 
Bouley 's  interpretation,  to  wit,  that  it  was  a  bearable  charbon 
which  he  had  inoculated,  Pasteur  wrote  rather  a  severe  note  on 
the  subject.  His  insisting  on  scrupulous  accuracy  in  experi- 
ment sometimes  made  him  a  little  hard  ;  though  the  process  was 
unreliable  and  the  explanation  inexact,  Toussaint  at  least  had 
the  merit  of  having  noted  a  condition  of  transitory  attenuation 
in  the  bacteridium.  Bouley  begged  Pasteur  to  postpone  his 
communication  out  of  consideration  for  Toussaint. 

One  of  the  sheep  folded  over  splenic-fever  pits  had  died  on 
August  25,  its  body,  full  of  bacteridia,  proving  once  more  the 
error  of  those  who  believed  in  the  spontaneity  of  transmissible 
diseases.     Pasteur  informed  J.  B.  Dumas  of  this,  and  at  the 

X  2 


308  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

same  time  expressed  his  opinion  on  the  Toussaint  fact.  This 
letter  was  read  at  the  Academie  des  Sciences. 

"Allow  me,  before  I  finish,  to  tell  you  another  secret.  I 
have  hastened,  again  with  the  assistance  of  Messrs.  Chamber- 
land  and  Koux,  to  verify  the  extraordinary  facts  recently 
announced  to  the  Academy  by  M.  Toussaint,  professor  at  the 
Toulouse  Veterinary  School. 

"  After  numerous  experiments  leaving  no  room  for  doubt, 
I  can  assure  you  that  M.  Toussaint's  interpretations  should 
be  gone  over  again.  Neither  do  I  agree  with  M.  Toussaint 
on  the  identity  which  he  affirms  as  existing  between  acute 
septicaemia  and  chicken-cholera ;  those  two  diseases  differ 
absolutely." 

Bouley  was  touched  by  this  temperate  language  after  all 
the  verifying  experiments  made  at  the  Ecole  Normale  and 
in  the  Jura.  When  relating  the  Alfort  incidents,  and  while 
expressing  a  hope  that  some  vaccination  against  anthrax 
would  shortly  be  discovered,  he  revealed  that  Pasteur  had 
had  "the  delicacy  of  abstaining  from  a  detailed  criticism, 
so  as  to  leave  M,  Toussaint  the  care  of  checking  his  own 
results." 

The  struggle  against  virulent  diseases  was  becoming  more 
and  more  the  capital  question  for  Pasteur.  He  constantly 
recurred  to  the  subject,  not  only  in  the  laboratory,  but  in  his 
home  conversations,  for  he  associated  his  family  with  all  the 
preoccupations  of  his  scientific  life.  Now  that  the  oxygen  of 
air  appeared  as  a  modifying  influence  on  the  development  of  a 
microbe  in  the  body  of  animals,  it  seemed  possible  tliat  there 
might  be  a  general  law  applicable  to  every  virus  !  What  a 
benefit  it  would  be  if  the  vaccine  of  every  virulent  disease  could 
thus  be  discovered  !  And  in  his  thirst  for  research,  considering 
that  the  scientific  history  of  chicken-cholera  was  more  advanced 
than  that  of  variolic  and  vaccinal  affections — the  great  fact  of 
vaccination  remaining  isolated  and  unexplained — he  hastened 
on  his  return  to  Paris  (September,  1880)  to  press  physicians 
on  this  special  point — the  relations  between  small-pox  and 
vaccine.  "  From  the  point  of  view  of  physiological  experi- 
mentation," he  said,  "the  identity  of  the  variola  virus  with 
the  vaccine  virus  has  never  been  demonstrated."  When  Jules 
Guerin — a  born  fighter,  still  desirous  at  the  age  of  eighty  to 
measure  himself  successfully  with  Pasteur — declared  that 
"  human  vaccine  is  the  product  of  animal  variola  (cow  pox  and 


1880—1882  309 

horse  pox)  inoculated  into  man  and  humanised  by  its  successive 
transmissions  on  man,"  Pasteur  answered  ironically  that  he 
might  as  well  say,  "  Vaccine  is — vaccine." 

Those  who  were  accustomed  to  speak  to  Pasteur  with  absolute 
sincerity  advised  him  not  to  let  himself  be  dragged  further  into 
those  discussions  when  his  adversaries,  taking  words  for  ideas, 
drowned  the  debate  in  a  flood  of  phrases.  Of  what  good 
were  such  debates  to  science,  since  those  who  took  the  first 
place  among  veterinary  surgeons,  physicians  and  surgeons, 
loudly  acknowledged  the  debt  which  science  owned  to  Pasteur  ? 
Why  be  surprised  that  certain  minds,  deeply  disturbed  in  their 
habits,  their  principles,  their  influence,  should  feel  some  diffi- 
culty, some  anger  even  in  abandoning  their  ideas?  If  it  is 
painful  to  tenants  to  leave  a  house  in  which  they  have  spent 
their  youth,  what  must  it  be  to  break  with  one's  whole 
education? 

Pasteur,  who  allowed  himself  thus  to  be  told  that  he  lacked 
philosophical  serenity,  acknowledged  this  good  advice  with  an 
affectionate  smile.  He  promised  to  be  calm  ;  but  when  once  in 
the  room,  his  adversaries'  attacks,  their  prejudices  and 
insinuations,  enervated  and  irritated  him.  All  his  promises 
were  forgotten. 

"  To  pretend  to  express  the  relation  between  human  variola 
and  vaccine  by  speaking  but  of  vaccine  and  its  relations  with 
cow  pox  and  horse  pox,  without  even  pronouncing  the  word 
small-pox,  is  mere  equivocation,  done  on  purpose  to  avoid  the 
real  point  of  the  debate."  Becoming  excited  by  Guerin's 
antagonism,  Pasteur  turned  some  of  Guerin's  operating  pro- 
cesses into  ridicule  with  such  effect  that  Guerin  started  from 
his  place  and  rushed  at  him.  The  fiery  octogenarian  was 
stopped  by  Baron  Larrey ;  the  sitting  was  suspended  in  con- 
fusion. The  following  day,  Guerin  sent  two  seconds  to  ask  for 
reparation  by  arms  from  Pasteur.  Pasteur  referred  them  to 
M.  Beclard,  Permanent  Secretary  to  the  Academic  de  Medicine, 
and  M.  Bergeron,  its  Annual  Secretary,  who  were  jointly 
responsible  for  the  Official  Bulletin  of  the  Academy.  "I  am 
ready,"  said  Pasteur,  "having  no  right  to  act  otherwise,  to 
modify  whatever  the  editors  may  consider  as  going  beyond  the 
rights  of  criticism  and  legitimate  defence." 

In  deference  to  the  opinion  of  Messrs.  Beclard  and  Bergeron, 
Pasteur  consented  to  terminate  the  quarrel  by  writing  to  the 
chairman  of  the  Academy  that  he  had  no  intention  of  offending 


310  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

a  colleague,  and  that  in  all  discussions  of  that  kind,  he  never 
thought  of  anything  but  to  defend  the  exactitude  of  his  own 
work. 

The  Journal  de  la  Medecine  et  de  la  Chiinie,  edited  by  M. 
Lucas-Championniere,  said  a  propos  of  this  very  reasonable 
letter — "  We,  for  our  part,  admire  the  meekness  of  M.  Pasteur, 
who  is  sol  often  described  as  combative  and  ever  on  the  war- 
path. Here  we  have  a  scientist,  who  now  and  then  makes 
short,  substantial  and  extremely  interesting  communications. 
He  is  not  a,  medical  man,  and  yet,  guided  by  his  genius,  he 
opens  new  paths  across  the  most  arduous  studies  of  medical 
science.  Instead  of  being  offered  the  tribute  of  attention  and 
admiration  which  he  deserves,  he  meets  with  a  raging  opposi- 
tion from  some  quarrelsome  individuals,  ever  inclined  to  con- 
tradict after  listening  as  little  as  possible.  If  he  makes  use  of 
a  scientific  expression  not  understood  by  everybody,  or  if  he 
uses  a  medical  expression  slightly  incorrectly,  then  rises  before 
him  the  spectre  of  endless  speeches,  intended  to  prove  to  him 
that  all  was  for  the  best  in  medical  science  before  it  was  assisted 
by  the  precise  studies  and  resources  of  chemistry  and  experi- 
mentation. .  .  .  Indeed,  M.  Pasteur's  expression  of  equivo- 
cation seemed  to  us  moderate  !  ' ' 

How  many  such  futile  incidents,  such  vain  quarrels,  traverse 
the  life  of  a  great  man !  Later  on,  we  only  see  glory, 
apotheosis,  and  the  statues  in  public  places;  the  demi-gods 
seemed  to  have  marched  in  triumph  towards  a  grateful  pos- 
terity. But  how  many  obstacles  and  oppositions  are  there  to 
retard  the  progress  of  a  free  mind  desirous  of  bringing  his 
task  to  a  successful  conclusion  and  incited  by  the  fruitful 
thought  of  Death,  ever  present  to  spirits  preoccupied  with 
interests  of  a  superior  order?  Pasteur  looked  upon  himself 
as  merely  a  passing  guest  of  those  homes  of  intellect  which 
he  wished  to  enlarge  and  fortify  for  those  who  would  come 
after  him. 

Confronted  with  the  hostility,  indifference  and  scepticism 
which  he  found  in  the  members  of  the  Medical  Academy,  he 
once  appealed  to  the  students  who  sat  on  the  seats  open  to 
the  public. 

"Young  men,  you  who  sit  on  those  benches,  and  who  are 
perhaps  the  hope  of  the  medical  future  of  the  country,  do  not 
come  here  to  seek  the  excitement  of  polemics,  but  come  and 
learn  Method." 


1880—1882  311 

His  method,  as  opposed  to  vague  conceptions  and  a  priori 
speculations,  went  on  fortifying  itself  day  by  day.  Artificial 
attenuation,  that  is,  virus  modified  by  the  oxygen  of  air,  which 
weakens  and  abates  virulence ;  vaccination  by  the  attenuated 
virus — those  two  immense  steps  in  advance  were  announced  by 
Pasteur  at  the  end  of  1880.  But  would  the  same  process  apply 
to  the  microbe  of  charbon?  That  was  a  great  problem.  The 
vaccine  of  chicken-cholera  was  easy  to  obtain ;  by  leaving  pure 
cultures  to  themselves  for  a  time  in  contact  with  air,  they  soon 
lost  their  virulence.  But  the  spores  of  charbon,  very  indiffer- 
ent to  atmospheric  air,  preserved  an  indefinitely  prolonged 
virulence.  After  eight,  ten  or  twelve  years,  spores  found  in 
the  graves  of  victims  of  splenic  fever  were  still  in  full  virulent 
activity.  It  was  therefore  necessary  to  turn  the  difficulty  by 
a  culture  process  which  would  act  on  the  filament-shaped  bac- 
teridium  before  the  formation  of  spores.  What  may  now  be 
explained  in  a  few  words  demanded  long  weeks  of  trials,  tests 
and  counter  tests. 

In  neutralized  chicken  broth,  the  bacteridium  can  no  longer 
be  cultivated  at  a  temperature  of  45°  C. ;  it  can  still  be  culti- 
vated easily  at  a  temperature  of  42°  C.  or  43°  C,  but  the  spores 
do  not  develop. 

"At  that  extreme  temperature,"  explains  M.  Chamberland, 
' '  the  bacteridia  yet  live  and  reproduce  themselves ,  but  they 
never  give  any  germs.  Thenceforth,  when  trying  the  viru- 
lence of  the  phials  after  six,  eight,  ten  or  fifteen  days,  we  have 
found  exactly  the  same  phenomena  as  for  chicken-cholera. 
After  eight  days,  for  instance,  our  culture,  which  originally 
killed  ten  sheep  out  of  ten,  only  kills  four  or  five ;  after  ten  or 
twelve  days  it  does  not  kill  any ;  it  merely  communicates  to 
animals  a  benignant  malady  which  preserves  them  from  the 
deadly  form. 

"  A  remarkable  thing  is  that  the  bacteridia  whose  virulence 
has  been  attenuated  may  afterwards  be  cultivated  in  a  tempera- 
ture of  30°  C.  to  35°  C,  at  which  temperature  they  give  germs 
presenting  the  same  virulence  as  the  filaments  which  formed 
them." 

Bouley,  who  was  a  witness  of  all  these  facts,  said,  in  other 
words ,  that  ' '  if  that  attenuated  and  degenerated  bacteridium 
is  translated  to  a  culture  medium  in  a  lower  temperature,  fav- 
ourable to  its  activity,  it  becomes  once  again  apt  to  produce 
spores.     But  those  spores  born  of  weakened  bacteridia,  will 


312  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

only  produce  bacteridia  likewise  weakened  in  their  swarming 
faculties." 

Thus  is  obtained  and  enclosed  in  inalterable  spores  a  vaccine 
ready  to  be  sent  to  every  part  of  the  world  to  preserve  animals 
by  vaccination  against  splenic  fever. 

On  the  day  when  he  became  sure  of  this  discovery,  Pasteur, 
returning  to  his  rooms  from  his  laboratory,  said  to  his  family, 
with  a  deep  emotion — "  Nothing  would  have  consoled  me  if  this 
discovery,  which  my  collaborators  and  I  have  made,  had  not 
been  a  French  discovery." 

He  desired  to  wait  a  little  longer  before  proclaiming  it.  Yet 
the  cause  of  the  evil  was  revealed,  the  mode  of  propagation 
indicated,  prophylaxis  made  easy;  surely,  enough  had  been 
achieved  to  move  attentive  minds  to  enthusiasm  and  to  deserve 
the  gratitude  of  sheep  owners  ! 

So  thought  the  Society  of  French  Agricultors,  when  it 
decided,  on  February  21,  1881,  to  offer  to  Pasteur  a  medal  of 
honour.  J.  B.  Dumas,  detained  at  the  Academic  des  Sciences, 
was  unable  to  attend  the  meeting.  He  wrote  to  Bouley,  who 
had  been  requested  to  enumerate  Pasteur's  principal  discoveries 
at  that  large  meeting — "  I  had  desired  to  make  public  by  my 
presence  my  heartfelt  concurrence  in  your  admiration  for  him 
who  will  never  be  honoured  to  the  full  measure  of  his  merits,  of 
his  services  and  of  his  passionate  devotion  to  truth  and  to  our 
country." 

On  the  following  Monday,  Bouley  said  to  Dumas,  as  they 
were  walking  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  "Your  letter 
assures  me  of  a  small  share  of  immortality." 

"  See,"  answered  Dumas,  pointing  to  Pasteur,  who  was  pre- 
ceding them,  "there  is  he  who  will  lead  us  both  to 
immortality." 

On  that  Monday,  February  28,  Pasteur  made  his  celebrated 
communication  on  the  vaccine  of  splenic  fever  and  the  whole 
graduated  scale  of  virulence.  The  secret  of  those  returns  to 
virulence  lay  entirely  in  some  successive  cultures  through  the 
body  of  certain  animals.  If  a  weakened  bacteridium  was 
inoculated  into  a  guinea-pig  a  few  days  old  it  was  harmless ; 
but  it  killed  a  new-born  guinea-pig. 

"If  we  then  go  from  one  new-born  guinea-pig  to  another," 
said  Pasteur,  "  by  inoculation  of  the  blood  of  the  first  to  the 
second,  from  the  second  to  a  third,  and  so  on,  the  virulence  of 
the  bacteridium — that  is  :    its    adaptability    to    development 


1880—1882  313 

within  the  economy — becomes  gradually  strengthened.  It 
becomes  by  degrees  able  to  kill  guinea-pigs  three  or  four  days 
old,  then  a  week,  a  month,  some  years  old,  then  sheep  them- 
selves ;  the  bacteridium  has  returned  to  its  original  virulence. 
We  may  affirm ,  without  hesitation ,  though  we  have  not  had  the 
opportunity  of  testing  the  fact,  that  it  would  be  capable  of 
killing  cows  and  horses ;  and  it  preserves  that  virulence  inde- 
finitely if  nothing  is  done  to  attenuate  it  again. 

"  As  to  the  microbe  of  chicken-cholera,  when  it  has  lost  its 
power  of  action  on  hens,  its  virulence  may  be  restored  to  it  by 
applying  it  to  small  birds  such  as  sparrows  or  canaries,  which 
it  kills  immediately.  Then  by  successive  passages  through  the 
bodies  of  those  animals,  it  gradually  assumes  again  a  virulence 
capable  of  manifesting  itself  anew  on  adult  hens. 

"  Need  I  add,  that,  during  that  return  to  virulence,  by  the 
way,  virus-vaccines  can  be  prepared  at  every  degree  of  virulence 
for  the  bacillus  anthracis  and  for  the  chicken-cholera  microbe. 

' '  This  question  of  the  return  to  virulence  is  of  the  greatest 
interest  for  the  etiology  of  contagious  diseases." 

Since  charbon  does  not  recur,  said  Pasteur  in  the  course  of 
that  communication,  each  of  the  charbon  microbes  attenuated 
in  the  laboratory  constitutes  a  vaccine  for  the  superior  microbe. 
' '  What  therefore  is  easier  than  to  find  in  those  successive  virus , 
virus  capable  of  giving  splenic  fever  to  sheep,  cows  and  horses, 
without  making  them  perish,  and  assuring  them  of  ulterior 
immunity  from  the  deadly  disease?  We  have  practised  that 
operation  on  sheep  with  the  greatest  success.  When  the  season 
comes  for  sheep-folding  in  the  Beauce,  we  will  try  to  apply  it 
on  a  large  scale." 

The  means  of  doing  this  were  given  to  Pasteur  before  long ; 
assistance  was  offered  to  him  by  various  people  for  various 
reasons ;  some  desired  to  see  a  brilliant  demonstration  of  the 
truth ;  others  whispered  their  hopes  of  a  signal  failure.  The 
promoter  of  one  very  large  experiment  was  a  Melun  veterinary 
surgeon,  M.  Eossignol. 

In  the  Veterinary  Press,  of  which  M.  Eossignol  was  one 
of  the  editors,  an  article  by  him  might  have  been  read  on  the 
31st  January,  1881,  less  than  a  month  before  that  great  dis- 
covery on  charbon  vaccine,  wherein  he  expressed  himself  as 
follows  :  "  Will  you  have  some  microbe  ?  There  is  some 
everywhere.  Microbiolatry  is  the  fashion,  it  reigns  undis- 
puted ;  it  is  a  doctrine  which  must   not   even   be   discussed, 


314  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

especially  when  its  Pontiff,  the  learned  M.  Pasteur,  has 
pronounced  the  sacramental  words,  /  have  spoken.  The 
microbe  alone  is  and  shall  be  the  characteristic  of  a  disease ; 
that  is  understood  and  settled ;  henceforth  the  germ  theory 
must  have  precedence  of  pure  clinics  ;  the  Microbe  alone  is  true, 
and  Pasteur  is  its  prophet." 

At  the  end  of  March,  M.  Eossignol  began  a  campaign, 
begging  for  subscriptions,  pointing  out  how  much  the  cultiva- 
tors of  the  Brie — whose  cattle  suffered  almost  as  much  as  that 
of  the  Beauce — were  interested  in  the  question.  The  dis- 
covery, if  it  were  genuine,  should  not  remain  confined  to  the 
Ecole  Normale  laboratory,  or  monopolized  by  the  privileged 
public  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  who  had  no  use  for  it. 
M.  Eossignol  soon  collected  about  100  subscribers.  Did  he 
believe  that  Pasteur  and  his  little  phials  would  come  to  a 
hopeless  fiasco  in  a  farmyard  before  a  public  of  old  prac- 
titioners who  had  always  been  powerless  in  the  presence  of 
splenic  fever?  Microbes  were  a  subject  for  ceaseless  joking; 
people  had  hilarious  visions  of  the  veterinary  profession  con- 
fined some  twenty  years  hence  in  a  model  laboratory  assiduously 
cultivating  numberless  races,  sub-races,  varieties  and  sub- 
varieties  of  microbes. 

It  is  probable  that,  if  light  comes  from  above,  a  good  many 
practitioners  would  not  have  been  sorry  to  see  a  strong  wind 
from  below  putting  out  Pasteur's  light. 

M.  Eossignol  succeeded  in  interesting  every  one  in  this 
undertaking.  When  the  project  was  placed  before  the  Melun 
Agricultural  Society  on  the  2nd  April,  they  hastened  to  approve 
of  it  and  to  accord  their  patronage. 

The  chairman,  Baron  de  la  Eochette,  was  requested  to 
approach  Pasteur  and  to  invite  him  to  organize  public  experi- 
ments on  the  preventive  vaccination  of  charbon  in  the  districts 
of  Melun,  Fontainebleau  and  Provins. 

"  The  noise  which  those  experiments  will  necessarily  cause," 
wrote  M.  Eossignol,  "will  strike  every  mind  and  convince 
those  who  may  still  be  doubting ;  the  evidence  of  facts  will  have 
the  result  of  ending  all  uncertainty." 

Baron  de  la  Eochette  was  a  typical  old  French  gentleman  ; 
his  whole  person  was  an  ideal  of  old-time  distinction  and 
courtesy.  Well  up  to  date  in  all  agricultural  progress,  and 
justly  priding  himself,  with  the  ease  of  a  great  landowner,  that 
he  made  of  agriculture  an  art  and  a  science,  he  could  speak  in 


1880—1882  315 

any  surroundings  with  knowledge  of  his  subject  and  a  winning 
grace  of  manner.  When  he  entered  the  laboratory,  he  was  at 
once  charmed  by  the  simplicity  of  the  scientist,  who  hastened 
to  accept  the  proposal  of  an  extensive  experiment. 

At  the  end  of  April,  Pasteur  wrote  out  the  programme  which 
was  to  be  followed  near  Melun  at  the  farm  of  Pouilly  le  Fort. 
M.  Eossignol  had  a  number  of  copies  of  that  programme 
printed,  and  distributed  them,  not  only  throughout  the  Depart- 
ment of  Seine  et  Marne,  but  in  the  whole  agricultural  world. 
This  programme  was  so  decidedly  affirmative  that  some  one  said 
to  Pasteur,  with  a  little  anxiety:  "You  remember  what 
Marshal  Gouyion  St.  Cyr  said  of  Napoleon,  that  *  he  liked 
hazardous  games  with  a  character  of  grandeur  and  audacity.' 
It  was  neck  or  nothing  with  him ;  you  are  going  on  in  the  same 
way !  ' ' 

"Yes,"  answered  Pasteur,  who  meant  to  compel  a  victory. 

And  as  his  collaborators,  to  whom  he  had  just  read  the  precise 
and  strict  arrangements  he  had  made,  themselves  felt  a  little 
nervous,  he  said  to  them,  "  What  has  succeeded  in  the  labora- 
tory on  fourteen  sheep  will  succeed  just  as  well  at  Melun  on 
fifty." 

This  programme  left  him  no  retreat.  The  Melun  Agricul- 
tural Society  put  sixty  sheep  at  Pasteur's  disposal ;  twenty -five 
were  to  be  vaccinated  by  two  inoculations,  at  twelve  or  fifteen 
days'  interval,  with  some  attenuated  charbon  virus.  Some 
days  later  those  twenty-five  and  also  twenty-five  others  would 
be  inoculated  with  some  very  virulent  charbon  culture. 

"  The  twenty-five  un vaccinated  sheep  will  all  perish,"  wrote 
Pasteur,  "  the  twenty-five  vaccinated  ones  will  survive." 
They  would  afterwards  be  compared  with  the  ten  sheep  which 
had  undergone  no  treatment  at  all.  It  would  thus  be  seen  that 
vaccination  did  not  prevent  sheep  from  returning  to  their 
normal  state  of  health  after  a  certain  time. 

Then  came  other  prescriptions,  for  instance,  the  burying  of 
the  dead  sheep  in  distinct  graves,  near  each  other  and  enclosed 
within  a  paling. 

"  In  May,  1882,"  added  Pasteur,  "  twenty  new  sheep,  that 
is,  sheep  never  before  used  for  experimentation,  will  be  shut 
within  that  paling." 

And  he  predicted  that  the  following  year,  1882,  out  of  those 
twenty-five  sheep  fed  on  the  grass  of  that  little  enclosure  or  on 
forage  deposited  there,  several  would  become  infected  by  the 


316  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

charbon  germs  brought  to  the  surface  by  earthworms,  and  that 
they  would  die  of  splenic  fever.  Finally,  twenty-five  other 
sheep  might  be  folded  in  a  neighbouring  spot ,  where  no  charbon 
victims  had  ever  been  buried,  and  under  these  conditions  none 
would  contract  the  disease. 

M.  de  la  Eochette  having  expressed  a  desire  that  cows  should 
be  included  in  the  programme,  Pasteur  answered  that  he  was 
willing  to  try  that  new  experiment,  though  his  tests  on  vaccine 
for  cows  were  not  as  advanced  as  those  on  sheep  vaccine. 
Perhaps,  he  said,  the  results  may  not  be  as  positive,  though  he 
thought  they  probably  would  be.  He  was  offered  ten  cows ; 
six  were  to  be  vaccinated  and  four  not  vaccinated.  The  experi- 
ments were  to  begin  on  the  Thursday,  5th  May,  and  would  in 
all  likelihood  terminate  about  the  first  fortnight  in  June. 

At  the  time  when  M.  Eossignol  declared  that  all  was  ready 
for  the  fixed  time,  an  editor's  notice  in  the  Veterinary  Press 
said  that  the  laboratory  experiments  were  about  to  be  repeated 
in  campo,  and  that  Pasteur  could  thus  "demonstrate  that  he 
had  not  been  mistaken  when  he  affirmed  before  the  astonished 
Academy  that  he  had  discovered  the  vaccine  of  splenic  fever, 
a  preventative  to  one  of  the  most  terrible  diseases  with  which 
animals  and  even  men  could  be  attacked."  This  notice  ended 
thus,  with  an  unexpected  classical  reminiscence  :  "  These 
experiments  are  solemn  ones,  and  they  will  become  memorable 
if,  as  M.  Pasteur  asserts,  with  such  confidence,  they  confirm 
all  those  he  has  already  instituted.  We  ardently  wish  that  M. 
Pasteur  may  succeed  and  remain  the  victor  in  a  tournament 
which  has  now  lasted  long  enough.  If  he  succeeds,  he  will 
have  endowed  his  country  with  a  great  benefit,  and  his  adver- 
saries should,  as  in  the  days  of  antiquity,  wreathe  their  brows 
with  laurel  leaves  and  prepare  to  follow,  chained  and  prostrate, 
the  chariot  of  the  immortal  Victor.  But  he  must  succeed  : 
such  is  the  price  of  triumph.  Let  M.  Pasteur  not  forget  that 
the  Tarpeian  Eock  is  near  the  Capitol." 

On  May  5  a  numerous  crowd  arriving  from  Melun  station  or 
from  the  little  station  of  Cesson,  was  seen  moving  towards  the 
yard  of  Pouilly  le  Fort  farm ;  it  looked  like  a  mobilisation  of 
Conseillers  Generaux,  agricultors,  physicians,  apothecaries,  and 
especially  veterinary  surgeons.  Most  of  these  last  were  full  of 
scepticism — as  was  remarked  by  M.  Thierry,  who  represented 
the  Veterinary  Society  of  the  Yonne,  and  one  of  his  colleagues, 
M.  Biot,  of  Pont-sur- Yonne.     They  were  exchanging  jokes  and 


1880—1882  317 

looks  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  Pasteur's  adversaries. 
They  were  looking  forward  to  the  last  and  most  virulent 
inoculation. 

Pasteur,  assisted  not  only  by  Messrs.  Chamberland  and 
Eoux,  but  also  by  a  third  pupil  of  the  name  of  Thuillier,  pro- 
ceeded to  the  arrangement  of  the  subjects.  At  the  last 
moment,  two  goats  were  substituted  for  two  of  the  sheep. 

Vaccination  candidates  and  unvaccinated  test  sheep  were 
divided  under  a  large  shed.  For  the  injection  of  the  vaccinal 
liquid,  Pravaz's  little  syringe  was  used;  those  who  have 
experienced  morphia  injections  know  how  easily  the  needle 
penetrates  the  subcutaneous  tissues.  Each  of  the  twenty-five 
sheep  received,  on  the  inner  surface  of  the  right  thigh,  five 
drops  of  the  bacteridian  culture  which  Pasteur  called  the  first 
vaccine.  Five  cows  and  one  ox  substituted  for  the  sixth  cow 
were  vaccinated  in  their  turn,  behind  the  shoulder.  The  ox 
and  the  cows  were  marked  on  the  right  horn,  and  the  sheep  on 
the  ear. 

Pasteur  was,  after  this,  asked  to  give  a  lecture  on  splenic 
fever  in  the  large  hall  of  the  Pouilly  farm.  Then,  in  clear, 
simple  language,  meeting  every  objection  half-way,  showing  no 
astonishment  at  ignorance  or  prejudice,  knowing  perfectly  well 
that  many  were  really  hoping  for  a  failure,  he  methodically 
described  the  road  already  travelled,  and  pointed  to  the  goal  he 
would  reach.  For  nearly  an  hour  he  interested  and  instructed 
his  mixed  audience ;  he  made  them  feel  the  genuineness  of  his 
faith,  and,  besides  his  interest  in  the  scientific  problem,  his 
desire  to  spare  heavy  losses  to  cultivators.  After  the  lecture, 
some,  better  informed  than  others,  were  admiring  the  logical 
harmony  of  that  career,  mingling  with  pure  science  results  of 
incalculable  benefit  to  the  public,  an  extraordinary  alliance 
which  gave  a  special  moral  physiognomy  to  this  man  of  pro- 
digious labours. 

An  appointment  was  made  for  the  second  inoculation.  In 
the  interval — on  May  6,  7,  8  and  9 — Messrs.  Chamberland  and 
Roux  came  to  Pouilly  le  Fort  to  take  the  temperature  of  the 
vaccinated  animals,  and  found  nothing  abnormal.  On  May  17 
a  second  inoculation  was  made  with  a  liquid  which,  though  still 
attenuated,  was  more  virulent  than  the  first.  If  that  liquid 
had  been  inoculated  to  begin  with  it  would  have  caused  a  mor- 
tality of  50  per  100. 

"  On  Tuesday,  May  31,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  son-in-law, 


318  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

' '  the  third  and  last  inoculation  will  take  place — this  time  with 
fifty  sheep  and  ten  cows.  I  feel  great  confidence — for  the  two 
first,  on  the  5th  and  the  17th,  have  been  effected  under  the  best 
conditions  without  any  mortality  amongst  the  twenty-five 
vaccinated  subjects.  On  June  5  at  latest  the  final  result  will 
be  known,  and  should  be  twenty-five  survivors  out  of  twenty- 
five  vaccinated,  and  six  cows.  If  the  success  is  complete,  this 
will  be  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  applied  science  in  this 
century,  consecrating  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  fruitful 
discoveries." 

This  great  experiment  did  not  hinder  other  studies  being 
pursued  in  the  laboratory.  The  very  day  of  the  second  inocula- 
tion at  Pouilly  le  Fort,  Mme.  Pasteur  wrote  to  her  daughter, 
"  One  of  the  laboratory  dogs  seems  to  be  sickening  for  hydro- 
phobia ;  it  seems  that  that  would  be  very  lucky,  in  view  of  the 
interesting  experiment  it  would  provide." 

On  May  25,  another  letter  from  Mme.  Pasteur  shows  how 
deeply  each  member  of  the  family  shared  Pasteur's  preoccupa- 
tions and  hopes  and  was  carried  away  with  the  stream  of  his 
ideas:  "Your  father  has  just  brought  great  news  from  the 
laboratory.  The  new  dog  which  was  trephined  and  inoculated 
with  hydrophobia  died  last  night  after  nineteen  days'  incuba- 
tion only.  The  disease  manifested  itself  on  the  fourteenth  day, 
and  this  morning  the  same  dog  was  used  for  the  trephining  of  a 
fresh  dog,  which  was  done  by  Roux  with  unrivalled  skill.  All 
this  means  that  we  shall  have  as  many  mad  dogs  as  will  be 
required  for  experiments,  and  those  experiments  will  become 
extremely  interesting. 

"Next  month  one  of  the  master's  delegates  will  go  to  the 
south  of  France  to  study  the  *  rouget '  of  swine,  which  ordin- 
arily rages  at  this  time. 

"It  is  much  hoped  that  the  vaccine  of  that  disease  will  be 
found." 

The  trephining  of  that  dog  had  much  disturbed  Pasteur. 
He,  who  was  described  in  certain  anti-vivisectionist  quarters 
as  a  laboratory  executioner,  had  a  great  horror  of  inflicting 
suffering  on  any  animal. 

"He  could  assist  without  too  much  effort,"  writes  M.  Roux, 
"  at  a  simple  operation  such  as  a  subcutaneous  inoculation,  and 
even  then,  if  the  animal  screamed  at  all,  Pasteur  was  imme- 
diately filled  with  compassion,  and  tried  to  comfort  and 
encourage   the  victim,  in  a  way  which   would   have  seemed 


1880—1882  319 

ludicrous  if  it  had  not  been  touching.  The  thought  of  having  a 
dog's  cranium  perforated  was  very  disagreeable  to  him  ;  he  very 
much  wished  that  the  experiment  should  take  place ,  and  yet  he 
feared  to  see  it  begun.  I  performed  it  one  day  when  he  was 
out.  The  next  day,  as  I  was  telling  him  that  the  intercranial 
inoculation  had  presented  no  difficulty,  he  began  pitying  the 
dog.  '  Poor  thing !  His  brain  is  no  doubt  injured,  he  must 
be  paralysed  !  '  I  did  not  answer,  but  went  to  fetch  the  dog, 
whom  I  brought  into  the  laboratory.  Pasteur  was  not  fond  of 
dogs,  but  when  he  saw  this  one,  full  of  life,  curiously  investigat- 
ing every  part  of  the  laboratory,  he  showed  the  keenest 
pleasure,  and  spoke  to  the  dog  in  the  most  affectionate  manner. 
Pasteur  was  infinitely  grateful  to  this  dog  for  having  borne 
trephining  so  well,  thus  lessening  his  scruples  for  future 
trephining." 

As  the  day  was  approaching  for  the  last  experiments  at 
Pouilly  le  Port,  excitement  was  increasing  in  the  veterinary 
world.  Every  chance  meeting  led  to  a  discussion ;  some 
prudent  men  said  "  Wait."  Those  that  believed  were  still  fe^i 
in  number. 

One  or  two  days  before  the  third  and  decisive  inoculation ,  the 
veterinary  surgeon  of  Pont-sur-Yonne ,  M.  Biot,  who  was 
watching  with  a  rare  scepticism  the  Pouilly  le  Fort  experi- 
ments, met  Colin  on  the  road  to  Maisons-Alfort.  "  Our  con- 
versation " — M.  Biot  dictated  the  relation  of  this  episode  to 
M.  Thierry,  his  colleague,  also  very  sceptical  and  expecting  the 
Tarpeian  Eock — "our  conversation  naturally  turned  on 
Pasteur's  experiments.  Colin  said  :  '  You  must  beware,  for 
there  are  two  parts  in  the  bacteridia-culture  broth  :  one  upper 
part  which  is  inert ,  and  one  deep  part  very  active ,  in  which  the 
bacteridia  become  accumulated,  having  dropped  to  the  bottom 
because  of  their  weight.  The  vaccinated  sheep  will  be  inocu- 
lated with  the  upper  part  of  the  liquid,  whilst  the  others  will 
be  inoculated  with  the  bottom  liquid,  which  will  kill  them.'  " 
Colin  advised  M.  Biot  to  seize  at  the  last  moment  the  phial 
containing  the  virulent  liquid  and  to  shake  it  violently ,  "  so  as 
to  produce  a  perfect  mixture  rendering  the  whole  uniformly 
virulent." 

If  Bouley  had  heard  such  a  thing,  he  would  have  lost  his 
temper,  or  he  would  have  laughed  heartily.  A  year  before 
this,  in  a  letter  to  M.  Thierry,  who  not  only  defended  but 
extolled  Colin,  Bouley  had  written  : 


320  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

"  No  doubt  Colin  is  a  man  of  some  value,  and  he  has  cleverly 
taken  advantage  of  his  position  of  Chief  of  the  Anatomy  depart- 
ment at  Alfort  to  accomplish  some  important  labours.  But  it 
is  notable  that  his  negative  genius  has  ever  led  him  to  try  and 
demolish  really  great  work.  He  denied  Davaine,  Marey, 
Claude  Bernard,  Chauveau  ;  now  he  is  going  for  Pasteur." 
Bouley,  to  whom  Colin  was  indebted  for  his  situation  at 
Alfort ,  might  have  added ,  '  *  And  he  calls  me  his  persecutor  !  ' ' 
But  Biot  refused  to  believe  in  Colin 's  hostility  and  only  credited 
him  with  scruples  on  the  question  of  experimental  physiology. 
Colin  did  not  doubt  M.  Pasteur's  bona  fides,  M.  Biot  said,  but 
only  his  aptitude  to  conduct  experiments  in  anima  vili. 

On  May  31,  every  one  was  at  the  farm.  M.  Biot  executed 
Colin 's  indications  and  shook  the  virulent  tube  with  real 
veterinary  energy.  He  did  more  :  still  acting  on  advice  from 
Colin,  who  had  told  him  that  the  effective  virulence  was  in 
direct  proportion  to  the  quantity  injected,  he  asked  that  a 
larger  quantity  of  liquid  than  had  been  intended  should  be 
inoculated  into  the  animals.  A  triple  dose  was  given.  Other 
veterinary  surgeons  desired  that  the  virulent  liquid  should  be 
inoculated  alternatively  into  vaccinated  and  unvaccinated 
animals.  Pasteur  lent  himself  to  these  divers  requests  with 
impassive  indifference  and  without  seeking  for  their  motives. 

At  half -past  three  everything  was  done,  and  a  rendezvous 
fixed  for  June  2  at  the  same  place.  The  proportion  between 
believers  and  unbelievers  was  changing.  Pasteur  seemed  so 
sure  of  his  ground  that  many  were  saying  ' '  He  can  surely  not 
be  mistaken."  One  little  group  had  that  very  morning  drunk 
to  a  fiasco.  But,  whether  from  a  sly  desire  to  witness  a  failure, 
or  from  a  generous  wish  to  be  present  at  the  great  scientific 
victory,  every  man  impatiently  counted  the  hours  of  the  two 
following  days. 

On  June  4,  Messrs.  Chamberland  and  Koux  went  back  to 
Pouilly  le  Fort  to  judge  of  the  condition  of  the  patients. 
Amongst  the  lot  of  unvaccinated  sheep,  several  were  standing 
apart  with  drooping  heads,  refusing  their  food.  A  few  of  the 
vaccinated  subjects  showed  an  increase  of  temperature ;  one  of 
them  even  had  40°  C.  (104°  Fahrenheit)  ;  one  sheep  presented 
a  slight  oedema  of  which  the  point  of  inoculation  was  the 
centre;  one  lamb  was  lame,  another  manifestly  feverish,  but 
all,  save  one,  had  preserved  their  appetite.  All  the  unvac- 
cinated  sheep   were  getting  worse    and   worge.     "In   all   of 


1880—1882  321 

them,"  noted  M.  Eossignol,  "  breathlessness  is  at  its  maxi- 
mum ;  the  heaving  of  the  sides  is  now  and  then  inter- 
rupted by  groans.  If  the  most  sick  are  forced  to  get 
up  and  walk,  it  is  with  great  difficulty  that  they  advance 
a  few  steps,  their  limbs  being  so  weak  and  vacillating," 
Three  had  died  by  the  time  M.  Eossignol  left  Pouilly  le 
Fort.  "Everything  leads  me  to  believe,"  he  wrote, 
' '  that  a  great  number  of  sheep  will  succumb  during  the 
night." 

Pasteur's  anxiety  was  great  when  Messrs,  Chamberland  and 
Eoux  returned,  having  noticed  a  rise  in  the  temperature  of 
certain  vaccinated  subjects.  It  was  increased  by  the  arrival  of 
a  telegram  from  M.  Eossignol  announcing  that  he  considered 
one  sheep  as  lost.  By  a  sudden  reaction,  Pasteur,  who  had 
drawn  up  such  a  bold  programme,  leaving  no  margin  for  the 
unexpected,  and  who  the  day  before  seemed  of  an  imperturbable 
tranquillity  among  all  those  sheep,  the  life  or  death  of  whom 
was  about  to  decide  between  an  immortal  discovery  and  an 
irremediable  failure,  now  felt  himself  beset  with  doubts  and 
anguish, 

Bouley,  who  had  that  evening  come  to  see  his  master,  as 
he  liked  to  call  him,  could  not  understand  this  reaction — the 
result  of  too  much  strain  on  the  mind,  said  M.  Eoux,  whom 
it  did  not  astonish.  Pasteur's  emotional  nature,  strangely 
allied  to  his  fighting  temperament,  was  mastering  him.  "  His 
faith  staggered  for  a  time,"  writes  M.  Eoux,  "  as  if  the  experi- 
mental method  could  betray  him . ' '  The  night  was  a  sleepless 
one. 

"This  morning,  at  eight  o'clock,"  wrote  Mme.  Pasteur  to 
her  daughter,  "  we  were  still  very  much  excited  and  awaiting 
the  telegram  which  might  announce  some  disaster.  Your  father 
would  not  let  his  mind  be  distracted  from  his  anxiety.  At 
nine  o'clock  the  laboratory  was  informed,  and  the  telegram 
handed  to  me  five  minutes  later.  I  had  a  moment's  emotion, 
which  made  me  pass  through  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow. 
Yesterday,  a  considerable  rise  of  temperature  had  been  noticed 
with  terror  in  one  of  the  sheep ;  this  morning  that  same  sheep 
was  well  again." 

On  the  arrival  of  the  telegram  Pasteur's  face  lighted  up ;  his 
joy  was  deep,  and  he  desired  to  share  it  immediately  with  his 
absent  children.  Before  starting  for  Melun,  he  wrote  them  this 
letter  : 


322  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

"  June  2, 1881. 

"  It  is  only  Thursday ,  and  I  am  already  writing  to  you  ;  it  is 
because  a  great  result  is  now  acquired.  A  wire  from  Melun 
has  just  announced  it.  On  Tuesday  last,  31st  May,  we  inocu- 
lated all  the  sheep,  vaccinated  and  non-vaccinated,  with  very 
virulent  splenic  fever.  It  is  not  forty-eight  hours  ago.  Well, 
the  telegram  tells  me  that,  when  we  arrive  at  two  o'clock  this 
afternoon,  all  the  non-vaccinated  subjects  will  be  dead  ;  eighteen 
were  already  dead  this  morning,  and  the  others  dying.  As  to 
the  vaccinated  ones,  they  are  all  well;  the  telegram  ends  by 
the  words  '  stunning  success  '  ;  it  is  from  the  veterinary  surgeon, 
M.  Kossignol. 

"It  is  too  early  yet  for  a  final  judgment ;  the  vaccinated 
sheep  might  yet  fall  ill.  But  when  I  write  to  you  on  Sunday, 
if  all  goes  well,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  they  will 
henceforth  preserve  their  good  health,  and  that  the  success  will 
indeed  have  been  startling.  On  Tuesday,  we  had  a  foretaste 
of  the  final  results.  On  Saturday  and  Sunday,  two  sheep  had 
been  abstracted  from  the  lot  of  twenty-five  vaccinated  sheep, 
and  two  from  the  lot  of  twenty-five  non-vaccinated  ones,  and 
inoculated  with  a  very  virulent  virus.  Now,  when  on  Tuesday 
all  the  visitors  arrived,  amongst  whom  were  M.  Tisserand,  M. 
Patinot,  the  Prefect  of  Seine  et  Marne,  M.  Foucher  de  Careil, 
Senator,  etc.,  we  found  the  two  unvaccinated  sheep  dead,  and 
the  two  others  in  good  health.  I  then  said  to  one  of  the 
veterinary  surgeons  who  were  present,  '  Did  I  not  read  in  a 
newspaper,  signed  by  you,  h  propos  of  the  virulent  Httle 
organism  of  saliva,  "  There  I  one  more  microbe  ;  when  there  are 
100  we  shall  make  a  cross  "?'  '  It  is  true,'  he  immediately 
answered,  honestly.  '  But  I  am  a  converted  and  repentant 
sinner.'  'Well,'  I  answered,  '  allow  me  to  remind  you  of  the 
words  of  the  Gospel  :  Joy  shall  be  in  heaven  over  one  sinner 
that  repenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons 
which  need  no  repentance.'  Another  veterinary  surgeon  who 
was  present  said,  '  I  will  bring  you  another,  M.  Colin.'  '  You 
are  mistaken,'  I  rephed.  '  M.  Colin  contradicts  for  the  sake 
of  contradicting,  and  does  not  believe  because  he  will  not 
believe.  You  would  have  to  cure  a  case  of  neurosis,  and  you 
cannot  do  that !  '  Joy  reigns  in  the  laboratory  and  in  the  house. 
Kejoice,  my  dear  children." 

When  Pasteur  arrived,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  at 
the  farmyard  of  Pouilly  le  Fort,  accompanied  by  his  young 


1880—1882 

collaborators,  a  murmur  of  applause  arose,  which  soon  became 
loud  acclamation,  bursting  from  all  lips.  Delegates  from  the 
Agricultural  Society  of  Melun,  from  medical  societies, 
veterinary  societies,  from  the  Central  Council  of  Hygiene  of 
Seine  et  Marne,  journalists,  small  farmers  who  had  been  divided 
in  their  minds  by  laudatory  or  injurious  newspaper  articles — 
all  were  there.  The  carcases  of  twenty-two  unvaccinated  sheep 
were  lying  side  by  side  ;  two  others  were  breathing  their  last ; 
the  last  survivors  of  the  sacrificed  lot  showed  all  the 
characteristic  symptoms  of  splenic  fever.  All  the  vaccinated 
sheep  were  in  perfect  health. 

Bouley's  happy  face  reflected  the  feelings  which  were  so 
characteristic  of  his  attractive  personality  :  enthusiasm  for  a 
great  cause,  devotion  to  a  great  man.  M.  Kossignol,  in  one  of 
those  loyal  impulses  which  honour  human  nature,  disowned 
with  perfect  sincerity  his  first  hasty  judgment ;  Bouley  con- 
gratulated him.  He  himself,  many  years  before,  had  allowed 
himself  to  judge  too  hastily,  he  said,  of  certain  experiments  of 
Davaine's,  of  which  the  results  then  appeared  impossible. 
After  having  witnessed  these  experiments,  Bouley  had  thought 
it  a  duty  to  proclaim  his  error  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine, 
and  to  render  a  public  homage  to  Davaine.  "  That,  I  think," 
he  said,  "is  the  line  of  conduct  which  should  always  be 
observed ;  we  honour  ourselves  by  acknowledging  our  mistakes 
and  by  rendering  justice  to  neglected  merit. ' ' 

No  success  had  ever  been  greater  than  Pasteur's.  The 
veterinary  surgeons,  until  then  the  most  incredulous,  now 
convinced,  desired  to  become  the  apostles  of  his  doctrine. 
M.  Biot  spoke  of  nothing  less  than  of  being  himself 
vaccinated  and  afterwards  inoculated  with  the  most  active 
virus.  Colin 's  absence  was  much  regretted.  Pasteur  was 
not  yet  satisfied.  "We  must  wait  until  the  6th  of  June," 
he  said,  "for  the  experiment  to  be  complete,  and  the  proof 
decisive." 

M.  Eossignol  and  M.  Biot  proceeded  on  the  spot  to  the 
necropsy  of  two  of  the  dead  sheep.  An  abundance  of  bac- 
teridia  was  very  clearly  seen  in  the  blood  through  the 
microscope. 

Pasteur  was  accompanied  back  to  the  station  by  an  enthu- 
siastic crowd,  saluting  him— with  a  luxury  of  epithets  con- 
trasting with  former  ironies— as  the  immortal  author  of  the 
magnificent  discovery  of  splenic  fever  vaccination,  and  it  was 

Y  2 


324  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

decided  that  the  farm  of  Pouilly  le  Fort  would  henceforth  bear 
the  name  of  Clos  Pasteur. 

The  one  remaining  unvaccinated  sheep  died  that  same  night. 
Amongst  the  vaccinated  lot  one  ewe  alone  caused  some  anxiety. 
She  was  pregnant,  and  died  on  the  4th  of  June,  but  from  an 
accident  due  to  her  condition,  and  not  from  the  consequences 
of  the  inoculation,  as  was  proved  by  a  post-mortem  examination. 

Amongst  the  cattle,  those  which  had  been  vaccinated  showed 
no  sign  whatever  of  any  disturbance ;  the  others  presented 
enormous  oedemata. 

Pasteur  wrote  to  his  daughter  :  "  Success  is  definitely  con- 
firmed;  the  vaccinated  animals  are  keeping  perfectly  well,  the 
test  is  complete.  On  Wednesday  a  report  of  the  facts  and 
results  will  be  drawn  up  which  I  shall  communicate  to  the 
Academic  des  Sciences  on  Monday,  and  on  Tuesday  to  the 
Academic  de  M^decine." 

And,  that  same  day,  he  addressed  a  joyful  telegram  to  Bouley, 
who,  in  his  quality  of  General  Inspector  of  Veterinary  Schools, 
had  been  obliged  to  go  to  Lyons.  Bouley  answered  by  the 
following  letter  : 

"  Lyons,  June  5,  1881.  Dearest  Master,  your  triumph  has 
filled  me  with  joy.  Though  the  days  are  long  past  now  when 
my  faith  in  you  was  still  somewhat  hesitating ,  not  having  suf- 
ficiently impregnated  my  mind  with  your  spirit,  as  long  as  the 
event — which  has  just  been  realized  in  a  manner  so  rigorously 
in  conformity  with  your  predictions — was  still  in  the  future,  I 
could  not  keep  myself  from  feeling  a  certain  anxiety,  of  which 
you  were  yourself  the  cause,  since  I  had  seen  you  also  a  prey 
to  it,  like  all  inventors  on  the  eve  of  the  day  which  reveals 
their  glory.  At  last  your  telegram,  for  which  I  was  pining, 
has  come  to  tell  me  that  the  world  has  found  you  faithful  to  all 
your  promises,  and  that  you  have  inscribed  one  more  great  date 
in  the  annals  of  Science,  and  particularly  in  those  of  Medicine, 
for  which  you  have  opened  a  new  era. 

"  I  feel  the  greatest  joy  at  your  triumph  ;  in  the  first  place, 
for  you,  who  are  to-day  receiving  the  reward  of  your  noble 
efforts  in  the  pursuit  of  Truth  ;  and — shall  I  tell  you  ? — for 
myself  too,  for  I  have  so  intimately  associated  myself  with  your 
work  that  I  should  have  felt  your  failure  absolutely  as  if  it  had 
been  personal  to  me.  All  my  teaching  at  the  Museum  consists 
in  relating  your  labours  and  predicting  their  fruitfulness." 

Those  experiments  at  Pouilly  le  Fort  caused  a  tremendous 


1880—1882  325 

sensation ;  the  whole  of  France  buret  out  in  an  explosion  of 
enthusiasm.  Pasteur  now  knew  fame  under  its  rarest  and 
purest  form ;  the  loving  veneration ,  the  almost  worship  with 
which  he  inspired  those  who  lived  near  him  or  worked  with  him, 
had  become  the  feeling  of  a  whole  nation. 

On  June  13,  at  the  Acad^mie  des  Sciences,  he  was  able  to 
state  as  follows  his  results  and  their  practical  consequences  : 
' '  We  now  possess  virus  vaccines  of  charbon ,  capable  of  pre- 
serving from  the  deadly  disease ,  without  ever  being  themselves 
deadly — living  vaccines,  to  be  cultivated  at  will,  transportable 
anywhere  without  alteration,  and  prepared  by  a  method  which 
we  may  believe  susceptible  of  being  generalized,  since  it  has 
been  the  means  of  discovering  the  vaccine  of  chicken-cholera. 
By  the  character  of  the  conditions  I  am  now  enumerating,  and 
from  a  purely  scientific  point  of  view,  the  discovery  of  the 
vaccine  of  anthrax  constitutes  a  marked  step  in  advance  of  that 
of  Jenner's  vaccine,  since  the  latter  has  never  been  experi- 
mentally obtained." 

On  all  sides,  it  was  felt  that  something  very  great,  very 
unexpected,  justifying  every  sort  of  hope,  had  been  brought 
forth.  Ideas  of  research  were  coming  up.  On  the  very  morrow 
of  the  results  obtained  at  Pouilly  le  Fort,  Pasteur  was  asked  to 
go  to  the  Cape  to  study  a  contagious  disease  raging  among  goats. 

"Your  father  would  like  to  take  that  long  journey,"  wrote 
Mme.  Pasteur  to  her  daughter,  "  passing  on  his  way  through 
Senegal  to  gather  some  good  germs  of  pernicious  fever ;  but  I 
am  trying  to  moderate  his  ardour.  I  consider  that  the  study 
of  hydrophobia  should  suffice  him  for  the  present." 

He  was  at  that  time  "  at  boiling  point,"  as  he  put  it — going 
from  his  laboratory  work  to  the  Academies  of  Sciences  and 
Medicine  to  read  some  notes ;  then  to  read  reports  at  the  Agri- 
cultural Society  ;  to  Versailles ,  to  give  a  lecture  to  an  Agronomic 
Congress,  and  to  Alfort  to  lecture  to  the  professors  and  students. 
His  clear  and  well-arranged  words,  the  connection  between 
ideas  and  the  facts  supporting  them,  the  methodical  recital  of 
experiments,  allied  to  an  enthusiastic  view  of  the  future  and 
its  prospects — especially  when  addressing  a  youthful  audience— 
deeply  impressed  his  hearers.  Those  who  saw  and  heard  him 
for  the  first  time  were  the  more  surprised  that,  in  certain 
circles,  a  legend  had  formed  round  Pasteur's  name.  He  had 
been  described  as  of  an  irritable,  intolerant  temper,  domineering 
and  authoritative,  almost  despotic ;  and  people  now  saw  a  man 


THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

of  perfect  simplicity,  so  modest  that  he  did  not  seem  to  reahze 
his  own  glory,  pleased  to  answer — even  to  provoke — every 
objection,  only  raising  his  voice  to  defend  Truth,  to  exalt  Work, 
and  to  inspire  love  for  France,  which  he  wished  to  see  again  in 
the  first  rank  of  nations.  He  did  not  cease  to  repeat  that  the 
country  must  regain  her  place  through  scientific  progress.  Boys 
and  youths — ever  quick  to  penetrate  the  clever  calculations  of 
those  who  seek  their  own  interest  instead  of  accomplishing  a 
duty — listened  to  him  eagerly  and,  very  soon  conquered, 
enrolled  themselves  among  his  followers.  In  him  they  recog- 
nized the  three  rarely  united  qualities  which  go  to  form  true 
benefactors  of  humanity  :  a  mighty  genius,  great  force  of 
character,  and  genuine  goodness. 

The  Eepublican  Government,  desirous  of  recognizing  this 
great  discovery  of  splenic  fever  vaccination,  offered  him  the 
Grand  Cordon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.     Pasteur  put  forward 
one  condition  ;  he  wanted,  at  the  same  time,  the  red  ribbon  for 
his  two  collaborators.    "  What  I  have  most  set  my  heart  upon  is 
to  obtain  the  Cross  for  Chamberland  and  Eoux,"  he  wrote  to 
his  son-in-law  on  June  26  ;  "  only  at  that  price  will  I  accept  the 
Grand  Cross.     They  are  taking  such  trouble  !     Yesterday  they 
went  to  a  place  fifteen  kilometres  from  Senlis,  to  vaccinate  ten 
cows  and  250  sheep.     On  Thursday  we  vaccinated  300  sheep  at 
Vincennes.     On   Sunday  they  were  near  Coulommiers.     On 
Friday  we  are  going  to  Pithiviers.     What  I  chiefly  wish  is  that 
the  discovery  should  be  consecrated  by  an  exceptional  distinc- 
tion to  two  devoted  young  men,  full  of  merit  and  courage.     I 
wrote  yesterday  to  Paul  Bert,  asking  him  to  intervene  most 
warmly  in  their  favour." 

One  of  Pasteur's  earliest  friends,  who,  in  1862,  had  greeted 
with  joy  his  election  to  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  and  who 
had  never  ceased  to  show  the  greatest  interest  in  the  progress 
due  to  the  experimental  method,  entered  the  Ecole  Normale 
laboratory  with  a  beaming  face.  Happy  to  bring  good  tidings, 
he  took  his  share  of  them  like  the  devoted,  hardworking,  kindly 
man  that  he  was.  "  M.  Grandeau,"  wrote  Mme.  Pasteur  to 
her  children,  "  has  just  brought  to  the  laboratory  the  news  that 
Eoux  and  Chamberland  have  the  Cross  and  M.  Pasteur  the 
Grand  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  Hearty  congratulations 
were  exchanged  in  the  midst  of  the  rabbits  and  guinea-pigs." 

Those  days  were  darkened  by  a  great  sorrow.     Henri  Sainte 


1880—1882  327 

Claire  Deville  died.  Pasteur  was  then  reminded  of  the  words 
of  his  friend  in  1868  :  ' '  You  will  survive  me ,  I  am  your  senior  ; 
promise  that  you  will  pronounce  my  funeral  oration."  When 
formulating  this  desire,  Sainte  Claire  Deville  had  no  doubt  been 
desirous  of  giving  another  direction  to  the  presentiments  of 
Pasteur,  who  believed  himself  death-stricken.  But,  whether 
it  was  from  a  secret  desire,  or  from  an  affectionate  impulse,  he 
felt  that  none  understood  him  better  than  Pasteur.  Both  loved 
Science  after  the  same  manner ;  they  gave  to  patriotism  its 
real  place ;  they  had  hopes  for  the  future  of  the  human  mind ; 
they  were  moved  by  the  same  religious  feelings  before  the 
mysteries  of  the  Infinite. 

Pasteur  began  by  recalling  his  friend's  wish:  "And  here 
am  I,  before  thy  cold  remains,  obliged  to  ask  my  memory  what 
thou  wert  in  order  to  repeat  it  to  the  multitude  crowding  around 
thy  coffin.  But  how  superfluous  I  Thy  sympathetic  counten- 
ance, thy  witty  merriment  and  frank  smile,  the  sound  of  thy 
voice  remain  with  us  and  live  within  us.  The  earth  which 
bears  us,  the  air  we  breathe,  the  elements,  often  interrogated 
and  ever  docile  to  answer  thee,  could  speak  to  us  of  thee.  Thy 
services  to  Science  are  known  to  the  whole  world,  and  every 
one  who  has  appreciated  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  is  now 
mourning  for  thee." 

He  then  enumerated  the  scientist's  qualities,  the  inventive 
precision  of  that  eager  mind,  full  of  imagination,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  strictness  of  analysis  and  the  fruitful  teaching  so 
delightedly  recognized  by  those  who  had  worked  with  him, 
Debray,  Troost,  Fouqu6,  Grandeau,  Hautefeuille,  Gernez, 
Lechartier.  Then,  showing  that,  in  Sainte  Claire  Deville, 
the  man  equalled  the  scientist  : 

"  Shall  I  now  say  what  thou  wert  in  private  life?  Again, 
how  superfluous  !  Thy  friends  do  not  want  to  be  reminded 
of  thy  warm  heart.  Thy  pupils  want  no  proofs  of  thy  affection 
for  them  and  thy  devotion  in  being  of  service  to  them !  See 
their  sorrow. 

"  Should  I  tell  thy  sons,  thy  five  sons,  thy  joy  and  pride,  of 
the  preoccupations  of  thy  paternal  and  prudent  tenderness? 
And  can  I  speak  of  thy  smiling  goodness  to  her,  the  com- 
panion of  thy  life,  the  mere  thought  of  whom  filled  thy  eyes 
with  a  sweet  emotion  ? 

"  Oh  !  I  implore  thee,  do  not  now  look  down  upon  thy  weep- 
ing wife  and  afflicted  sons  :  thou  wouldst  regret  this  life  too 


328  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

much  !  Wait  for  them  rather  in  those  divine  regions  of  know- 
ledge and  full  light,  where  thou  knowest  all  now,  where  thou 
canst  understand  the  Infinite  itself,  that  terrible  and  bewildering 
notion ,  closed  for  ever  to  man  in  this  world ,  and  yet  the  eternal 
source  of  all  Grandeur,  of  all  Justice  and  all  Liberty." 

Pasteur's  voice  was  almost  stifled  by  his  tears,  as  had  been 
that  of  J.  B.  Dumas  speaking  at  Peclet's  tomb.  The  emotions 
of  savants  are  all  the  deeper  that  they  are  not  enfeebled,  as  in 
so  many  writers  or  speakers,  by  the  constant  use  of  words 
which  end  by  wearing  out  the  feelings. 

Little  groups  slowly  walking  away  from  a  country  church- 
yard seem  to  take  with  them  some  of  the  sadness  they  have 
been  feeling,  but  the  departure  from  a  Paris  cemetery  gives  a 
very  different  impression.  Life  immediately  grasps  again  and 
carries  away  in  its  movement  the  mourners ,  who  now  look  as  if 
they  had  been  witnessing  an  incident  in  which  they  were  not 
concerned.  Pasteur  felt  such  bitter  contrasts  with  all  his 
tender  soul,  he  had  a  cult  for  dear  memories;  Sainte  Claire 
Deville's  portrait  ever  remained  in  his  study. 

The  adversaries  of  the  new  discovery  now  had  recourse  to  a 
new  mode  of  attack.     The  virus  which  had  been  used  at  Pouilly 
le  Fort  to  show  how  efficacious  were  the  preventive  vaccina- 
tions  was,    they    said,   a   culture    virus — some    even    said   a 
Machiavellian    preparation   of   Pasteur's.     Would   vaccinated 
animals  resist  equally  well  the  action   of  the  charbon  blood 
itself,  the  really  malignant  and  infalhbly  deadly  blood?     Those 
sceptics  were  therefore  impatiently  awaiting  the  result  of  some 
experiments  which  were  being  carried  out  near  Chartres  in  the 
farm  of  Lambert.     Sixteen  Beauceron  sheep  were  joined  to  a 
lot  of  nineteen  sheep  brought  from  Alfort  and  taken  from  the 
herd  of  300  sheep  vaccinated   against   charbon   three   wrecks 
before,  on  the  very  day  of  the  lecture  at  Alfort.     On  July  16, 
at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  thirty-five  sheep,  vaccinated 
and  non-vaccinated,  were  gathered  together.     The  corpse  of  a 
sheep  who  had  died  of  charbon  four  hours  before,  in  a  neigh- 
bouring farm,  was  brought  into  the  field  selected  for  the  experi- 
ments.    After  making  a  post-mortem  examination  and  noting 
the  characteristic  injuries  of  splenic  fever,  ten  drops  of  the 
dead  sheep's  blood  were  injected  into  each  of  the  thirty-five 
sheep,  taking  one  vaccinated  at  Alfort  and  one  non-vaccinated 
Beauceron  alternately.     Two  days  later,  on  July  18,  ten  of  the 


1880—1882 

latter  were  already  dead,  most  of  the  others  were  prostrated. 
The  vaccinated  sheep  were  perfectly  well. 

While  the  ten  dead  sheep  were  being  examined,  two  more 
died,  and  three  more  on  the  19th.  Bouley,  informed  by  the 
veterinary  surgeon,  Boutet,  of  those  successive  incidents,  wrote 
on  the  20th  to  Pasteur  :  "My  dear  Master,  Boutet  has  just 
informed  me  of  the  Chartres  event.  All  has  been  accomplished 
according  to  the  master's  words ;  your  vaccinated  sheep  have 
triumphantly  come  through  the  trial,  and  all  the  others  save 
one  are  dead.  That  result  is  of  special  importance  in  a 
country-side  where  incredulity  was  being  maintained  in  spite 
of  all  the  demonstrations  made.  It  seems  that  the  doctors 
especially  were  refractory.  •  They  said  it  was  too  good  to  be 
true,  and  they  counted  on  the  strength  of  the  natural  charbon 
to  find  your  method  in  default.  Now  they  are  converted, 
Boutet  writes,  and  the  veterinary  surgeon  too — one  amongst 
others,  whose  brain,  it  seems,  was  absolutely  iron-clad — also 
the  agricultors.     There  is  a  general  Hosannah  in  your  honour." 

After  congratulating  Pasteur  on  the  Grand  Cross,  he  added, 
"  I  was  also  very  glad  of  the  reward  you  have  obtained  for 
your  two  young  collaborators,  so  full  of  your  spirit,  so  devoted 
to  your  work  and  your  person,  and  whose  assistance  is  so  self- 
sacrificing  and  disinterested.  The  Government  has  honoured 
itself  by  so  happily  crowning  with  that  distinction  the  great- 
ness of  the  discovery  in  which  they  took  part." 

Henceforth,  and  for  a  time,  systematic  opposition  ceased. 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  doses  were  used  of  the  new 
vaccine,  which  afterwards  saved  millions  to  agriculture. 

A  few  days  later,  came  a  change  in  Pasteur's  surroundings. 
He  was  invited  by  the  Organizing  Committee  to  attend  the 
International  Medical  Congress  in  London,  and  desired  by  the 
Government  of  the  Eepublic  to  represent  Prance. 

On  August  3,  when  he  arrived  in  St.  James'  Hall,  filled  to 
overflowing,  from  the  stalls  to  the  topmost  galleries,  he  was 
recognized  by  one  of  the  stewards,  who  invited  him  to  come  to 
the  platform  reserved  for  the  most  illustrious  members  of  the 
Congress.  As  he  was  going  towards  the  platform,  there  was 
an  outburst  of  applause,  hurrahs  and  acclamations.  Pasteur 
turned  to  his  two  companions,  his  son  and  his  son-in-law,  and 
said,  with  a  little  uneasiness  :  "  It  is  no  doubt  the  Prince  of 
Wales  arriving;  I  ought  to  have  come  sooner." 

"But  it  is  you  that  they  are  all  cheering,"  said  the  Presi- 


THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

dent  of  the  Congress,  Sir  James  Paget,  with  his  grave,  kindly 
smile. 

A  few  moments  later,  the  Prince  of  Wales  entered,  accom- 
panying his  brother-in-law,  the  German  Crown  Prince. 

In  his  speech.  Sir  James  Paget  said  that  medical  science 
should  aim  at  three  objects  :  novelty,  utility  and  charity.  The 
only  scientist  named  was  Pasteur ;  the  applause  was  such  that 
Pasteur,  who  was  sitting  behind  Sir  James  Paget,  had  to  rise 
and  bow  to  the  huge  assembly. 

"  I  felt  very  proud,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  Mme.  Pasteur  in  a 
letter  dated  that  same  day,  "  I  felt  inwardly  very  proud,  not 
for  myself — you  know  how  little  I  care  for  triumph  ! — but  for 
my  country ,  in  seeing  that  I  was  specially  distinguished  among 
that  immense  concourse  of  foreigners,  especially  of  Germans, 
who  are  here  in  much  greater  numbers  than  the  French ,  whose 
total,  however,  reaches  two  hundred  and  fifty.  Jean  Baptiste 
and  Ren6  were  in  the  Hall ;  you  can  imagine  their  emotion. 

*'  After  the  meeting,  we  lunched  at  Sir  James  Paget 's 
house ;  he  had  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince  on  his  right  and  the 
Prince  of  Wales  on  his  left.  Then  there  was  a  gathering  of 
about  twenty-five  or  thirty  guests  in  the  drawing-room.  Sir 
James  presented  me  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  to  whom  I  bowed, 
saying  that  I  was  happy  to  salute  a  friend  to  France.  '  Yes,' 
he  answered,  '  a  great  friend.'  Sir  James  Paget  had  the  good 
taste  not  to  ask  me  to  be  presented  to  the  Prince  of  Prussia ; 
though  there  is  of  course  room  for  nothing  but  courtesy  under 
such  circumstances,  I  could  not  have  brought  myself  to  appear 
to  wish  to  be  presented  to  him.  But  he  himself  came  up  to 
me  and  said,  '  M.  Pasteur,  allow  me  to  introduce  myself  to 
you,  and  to  tell  you  that  I  had  great  pleasure  in  applauding 
you  just  now,'  adding  some  more  pleasant  things." 

In  the  midst  of  the  unexpected  meetings  brought  about  by 
that  Congress,  it  was  an  interesting  thing  to  see  this  son  of  a 
King  and  Emperor,  the  heir  to  the  German  crown,  thus  going 
towards  that  Frenchman  whose  conquests  were  made  over 
disease  and  death.  Of  what  glory  might  one  day  dream  this 
Prince,  who  became  Frederic  III ! 

His  tall  and  commanding  stature,  the  highest  position  in  the 
Prussian  army  conferred  on  him  by  his  father.  King  William, 
in  a  solemn  letter  dated  from  Versailles,  October,  1870 — every- 
thing seemed  to  combine  in  making  a  warlike  man  of  this 
powerful-looking  prince.     And  yet  was  it  not  said  in  France 


1880—1882  331 

that  he  had  protested  against  certain  barbarities,  coldly 
executed  by  some  Prussian  generals  during  that  campaign  of 
1870?  Had  he  not  considered  the  clauses  of  the  Treaty  of 
'Frankfort  as  Draconian  and  dangerous?  If  he  had  been  sole 
master,  would  he  have  torn  Alsace  away  from  France?  What 
share  would  his  coming  reign  bear  in  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion? .  .  .  Fate  had  already  marked  this  Prince,  only  fifty 
years  old,  for  an  approaching  death.  In  his  great  sufferings, 
before  the  inexorable  death  which  was  suffocating  him,  he  was 
heroically  patient.  His  long  agony  began  at  San  Eemo, 
amongst  the  roses  and  sunshine ;  he  was  an  Emperor  for  less 
than  one  hundred  days,  and,  on  his  death-bed,  words  of  peace, 
peace  for  his  people,  were  on  his  lips. 

As  Pasteur,  coming  to  this  Congress,  was  not  only  curious  to 
see  what  was  the  place  held  in  medicine  and  surgery  by  the 
germ-theory,  but  also  desirous  to  learn  as  much  as  possible,  he 
never  missed  a  discussion  and  attended  every  meeting.  It  was 
in  a  simple  sectional  meeting  that  Bastian  attempted  to  refute 
Lister.  After  his  speech,  the  President  suddenly  said,  "  I  call 
on  M.  Pasteur,"  though  Pasteur  had  not  risen.  There  was 
great  applause ;  Pasteur  did  not  know  English ;  he  turned  to 
Lister  and  asked  him  what  Bastian  had  said. 

"He  said,"  whispered  Lister,  "that  microscopic  organiza- 
tions in  disease  were  formed  by  the  tissues  themselves." 

"  That  is  enough  for  me,"  said  Pasteur.  And  he  then 
invited  Bastian  to  try  the  following  experiment  : 

"  Take  an  animal's  limb,  crush  it,  allow  blood  and  other 
normal  or  abnormal  liquids  to  spread  around  the  bones,  only 
taking  care  that  the  skin  should  neither  be  torn  nor  opened  in 
any  way,  and  I  defy  you  to  see  any  micro-organism  formed 
within  that  limb  as  long  as  the  illness  will  last." 

Pasteur,  desired  to  do  so  by  Sir  James  Paget  at  one  of  the 
great  General  Meetings  of  the  Congress,  gave  a  lecture  on  the 
principles  which  had  led  him  to  the  attenuation  of  virus,  on 
the  methods  which  had  enabled  him  to  obtain  the  vaccines  of 
chicken-cholera  and  of  charbon,  and,  finally,  on  the  results 
obtained.  "  In  a  fortnight,"  he  said,  "  we  vaccinated,  in  the 
Departments  surrounding  Paris,  nearly  20,000  sheep,  and  a 
great  many  oxen,  cows  and  horses.   ... 

"  Allow  me,"  he  continued,  "not  to  conclude  without  telling 
you  of  the  great  joy  that  I  feel  in  thinking  that  it  is  as  a 
member   of   the   International    Medical   Congress   sitting    in 


382  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

London  that  I  have  made  known  to  you  the  vaccination  of 
a  disease  more  terrible  perhaps  for  domestic  animals  than  is 
small-pox  for  man,  I  have  given  to  the  word  vaccination  an 
extension  which  I  hope  Science  will  consecrate  as  a  homage 
to  the  merit  and  immense  services  rendered  by  your  Jenner, 
one  of  England's  greatest  men.  It  is  a  great  happiness  to  me 
to  glorify  that  immortal  name  on  the  very  soil  of  the  noble  and 
hospitable  city  of  London  !  " 

"  Pasteur  was  the  greatest  success  of  the  Congress,"  wrote 
the  correspondent  of  the  Journal  des  Dehats,  Dr.  Daremberg, 
glad  as  a  Frenchman  and  as  a  physician  to  hear  the  unanimous 
hurrahs  which  greeted  the  delegate  of  France.  "  When  M. 
Pasteur  spoke,  when  his  name  was  mentioned,  a  thunder  of 
applause  rose  from  all  benches,  from  all  nations.  An  indefatig- 
able worker,  a  sagacious  seeker,  a  precise  and  brilliant  experi- 
mentalist, an  implacable  logician,  and  an  enthusiastic  apostle, 
he  has  produced  an  invincible  effect  on  every  mind." 

The  English  people,  who  chiefly  look  in  a  great  man  for 
power  of  initiative  and  strength  of  character,  shared  this 
admiration.  One  group  only,  alone  in  darkness,  away  from 
the  Congress,  was  hostile  to  the  general  movement  and  was 
looking  for  an  opportunity  for  direct  or  indirect  revenge  ;  it  was 
the  group  of  anti-vaccinators  and  anti-vivisectionists.  The 
influence  of  the  latter  was  great  enough  in  England  to  prevent 
experimentation  on  animals.  At  a  general  meeting  of  the 
Congress,  Virchow,  the  German  scientist,  spoke  on  the  use  of 
experimenting  in  pathology. 

Already  at  a  preceding  Congress  held  in  Amsterdam ,  Virchow 
had  said  amid  the  applause  of  the  Assembly  :  "  Those  who 
attack  vivisection  have  not  the  faintest  idea  of  Science,  and 
even  less  of  the  importance  and  utility  of  vivisection  for  the 
progress  of  medicine."  But  to  this  just  argument,  the  interna- 
tional leagues  for  the  protection  of  animals — very  powerful, 
like  everything  that  is  founded  on  a  sentiment  which  may  be 
exalted — had  answered  by  combative  phrases.  The  physio- 
logical laboratories  were  compared  to  chambers  of  torture. 
It  seemed  as  if,  through  caprice  or  cruelty,  quite  uselessly  at 
any  rate,  this  and  that  man  of  science  had  the  unique  desire 
of  inflicting  on  bound  animals,  secured  on  a  board,  sufferings 
of  which  death  was  the  only  limit.  It  is  easy  to  excite  pity 
towards  animals ;  an  audience  is  conquered  as  soon  as  dogs 
are  mentioned.     Which  of  us,   whether  a  cherished  child,  a 


1880—1882 

neglected  old  maid,  a  man  in  the  prime  of  his  youth  or  a 
misanthrope  weary  of  everything,  has  not,  holding  the  best 
place  in  his  recollections,  the  memory  of  some  example  of 
fidelity,  corn-age  or  devotion  given  by  a  dog?  In  order  to 
raise  the  revolt,  it  was  sufficient  for  anti-vivisectionists  to  evoke 
amongst  the  ghosts  of  dog  martyrs  the  oft-quoted  dog  who, 
whilst  undergoing  an  experiment,  licked  the  hand  of  the 
operator.  As  there  had  been  some  cruel  abuses  on  the  part  of 
certain  students,  those  abuses  alone  were  quoted.  Scientists 
did  not  pay  much  heed  to  this  agitation,  partly  a  feminine 
one  :  they  relied  on  the  good  sense  of  the  public  to  put  an  end 
to  those  doleful  declamations.  But  the  English  Parliament 
voted  a  Bill  prohibiting  vivisection;  and,  after  1876,  English 
experimentalists  had  to  cross  the  Channel  to  inoculate  a  guinea- 

Pig- 

Virchow  did  not  go  into  details ;  but,  in  a  wide  expose  of 

Experimental  Physiological  Medicine,  he  recalled  how,  at  each 
new  progress  of  Science — at  one  time  against  the  dissection 
of  dead  bodies  and  now  against  experiments  on  living 
animals — the  same  passionate  criticisms  had  been  renewed. 
The  Interdiction  Bill  voted  in  England  had  filled  a  new 
Leipzig  Society  with  ardour ;  it  had  asked  the  Eeichstag 
in  that  same  year,  1881,  to  pass  a  law  punishing  cruelty  to 
animals  under  pretext  of  scientific  research,  by  imprison- 
ment, varying  between  five  weeks  and  two  years,  and  de- 
privation of  civil  rights.  Other  societies  did  not  go  quite  so 
far,  but  asked  that  some  of  their  members  should  have  a 
right  of  entrance  and  inspection  into  the  laboratories  of  the 
Faculties. 

* '  He  who  takes  more  interest  in  animals  than  in  Science 
and  in  the  knowledge  of  truth  is  not  qualified  to  inspect  officially 
things  pertaining  to  Science,"  said  Virchow.  With  an 
ironical  gravity  on  his  quizzical  wrinkled  face,  he  added, 
"Where  shall  we  be  if  a  scientist  who  has  just  begun  a  bona 
fide  experiment  finds  himself,  in  the  midst  of  his  researches, 
obliged  to  answer  questions  from  a  new-comer  and  afterwards 
to  defend  himself  before  some  magistrate  for  the  crime  of  not 
having  chosen  another  method,  other  instruments,  perhaps 
another  experiment?  .   .   . 

' '  We  must  prove  to  the  whole  world  the  soundness  of  our 
cause,"  concluded  Virchow,  uneasy  at  those  "  leagues  "  which 
grew    and    multiplied,    and    scattered    through    innumerable 


334  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

lecture  halls  the  most  fallacious  judgments  on  the  work  of 
scientists. 

Pasteur  might  have  brought  him,  to  support  his  statements 
relative  to  certain  deviations  of  ideas  and  sentiments,  number- 
less letters  which  reached  him  regularly  from  England— letters 
full  of  threats,  insults  and  maledictions,  devoting  him  to 
eternal  torments  for  having  multiplied  his  crimes  on  the  hens, 
guinea-pigs,  dogs  and  sheep  of  the  laboratory.  Love  of  animals 
carries  some  women  to  such  lengths  ! 

It  would  have  been  interesting,  if,  after  Virchow's  speech, 
some  French  physician  had  in  his  turn  related  a  series  of  facts, 
showing  how  prejudices  equally  tenacious  had  had  to  be 
struggled  against  in  France,  and  how  savants  had  succeeded 
in  enforcing  the  certainty  that  there  can  be  no  pathological 
science  if  Physiology  is  not  progressing,  and  that  it  can  only 
progress  by  means  of  the  experimental  method.  Claude 
Bernard  had  expressed  this  idea  under  so  many  forms 
that  it  would  almost  have  been  enough  to  give  a  few  extracts 
from  his  works. 

In  1841,  when  he  was  Magendie's  curator,  he  was  one  day 
attending  a  lesson  on  experimental  physiology,  when  he  saw 
an  old  man  come  in,  whose  costume — a  long  coat  with  a 
straight  collar  and  a  hat  with  a  very  wide  brim — indicated  a 
Quaker. 

"  Thou  hast  no  right,"  he  said,  addressing  Magendie,  "  to 
kill  animals  or  to  make  them  suffer.  Thou  givest  a  wicked 
example  and  thou  accustomest  thy  fellow  creatures  to  cruelty." 

Magendie  replied  that  it  was  a  pity  to  look  at  it  from  that 
point  of  view,  and  that  a  physiologist,  when  moved  by  the 
thought  of  making  a  discovery  useful  to  Medicine,  and  conse- 
quently useful  to  his  fellow  creatures,  did  not  deserve  that 
reproach. 

"Your  countryman  Harvey,"  said  he,  hoping  to  convince 
him,  "would  not  have  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
if  he  had  not  made  some  experiments  in  vivisection.  That 
discovery  was  surely  worth  the  sacrifice  of  a  few  deer  in  Charles 
the  First's  Park?  " 

But  the  Quaker  stuck  to  his  idea;  his  mission,  he  said,  was 
to  drive  three  things  from  this  world  :  war,  hunting  and  shoot- 
ing, and  experiments  on  live  animals.  Magendie  had  to  show 
him  out. 

Three  years  later,  Claude  Bernard,  in  his  turn,  was  taxed 


1880—1882  335 

with  barbarity  by  a  Police  Magistrate.  In  order  to  study  the 
digestive  properties  of  gastric  juice,  it  had  occurred  to  hini  to 
collect  it  by  means  of  a  cannula,  a  sort  of  silver  tap  which  he 
adapted  to  the  stomach  of  live  dogs.  A  Berlin  surgeon,  M. 
Dieffenbach,  who  was  staying  in  Paris,  expressed  a  wish  to 
see  this  application  of  a  cannula  to  the  stomach.  M.  Pelouze, 
the  chemist,  had  a  laboratory  in  the  Kue  Dauphine ;  he  offered 
it  to  Claude  Bernard.  A  stray  dog  was  used  as  a  subject  for 
the  experiment  and  shut  up  in  the  yard  of  the  house,  where 
Claude  Bernard  wished  to  keep  a  watch  on  him.  But,  as  the 
treatment  in  no  wise  hindered  the  dog  from  running  about ,  the 
door  of  the  yard  was  hardly  opened  when  he  escaped,  cannula 
and  all. 

"A  few  days  later,"  writes  Claude  Bernard  in  the  course  of 
an  otherwise  grave  report  concerning  the  progress  of  general 
physiology  in  France  (1867),  "I  was  still  in  bed,  early  one 
morning,  when  I  received  a  visit  from  a  man  who  came  to  tell 
men  that  the  Police  Commissary  of  the  Medicine  School  Dis- 
trict wished  to  speak  to  me,  and  that  I  must  go  round  to  see 
him.  I  went  in  the  course  of  the  day  to  the  Police  Com- 
missariat of  the  Eue  du  Jardinet ;  I  found  a  very  respectable- 
looking  little  old  man,  who  received  me  very  coldly  at  first  and 
without  saying  anything.  He  took  me  into  another  room  and 
showed  me,  to  my  great  astonishment,  the  dog  on  whom  I  had 
operated  in  M.  Pelouze 's  laboratory,  asking  me  if  I  confessed 
to  having  fixed  that  instrument  in  his  stomach.  I  answered 
affirmatively,  adding  that  I  was  delighted  to  see  my  cannula, 
which  I  thought  I  had  lost.  This  confession,  far  from  satisfy- 
ing the  Commissary,  apparently  provoked  his  wrath,  for  he 
gave  me  an  admonition  of  most  exaggerated  severity,  accom- 
panied with  threats  for  having  had  the  audacity  to  steal  his 
dog  to  experiment  on  it. 

"  I  explained  that  I  had  not  stolen  his  dog,  but  that  I  had 
bought  it  of  some  individuals  who  sold  dogs  to  physiologists, 
and  who  claimed  to  be  employed  by  the  police  in  picking  up 
stray  dogs.  I  added  that  I  was  sorry  to  have  been  the  involun- 
tary cause  of  the  grief  occasioned  in  his  household  by  the  mis- 
adventure to  the  dog,  but  that  the  animal  would  not  die  of  it; 
that  the  only  thing  to  do  was  to  let  me  take  away  my  silver 
cannula  and  let  him  keep  his  dog.  Those  last  words  altered 
the  Commissary's  language  and  completely  calmed  his  wife 
and  daughter.     I  removed  my  instrument  and  left,  promising 


THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

to  return,  which  I  did  the  next  and  following  days.  The  dog 
was  perfectly  cured  in  a  day  or  two,  and  I  became  a  friend  of 
the  family,  completely  securing  the  Commissary's  future  pro- 
tection. It  was  on  that  account  that  I  soon  after  set  up  my 
laboratory  in  his  District,  and  for  many  years  continued  my 
private  classes  of  experimental  physiology,  enjoying  the  pro- 
tection and  warnings  of  the  Commissary  and  thus  avoiding 
much  unpleasantness,  until  the  time  when  I  was  at  last  made 
an  assistant  to  Magendie  at  the  College  de  France." 

The  London  Society  for  the  Protection  of  Animals  had  the 
singular  idea  of  sending  to  Napoleon  III  complaints,  almost 
remonstrances,  on  the  vivisection  practised  within  the  French 
Empire.  The  Emperor  simply  sent  on  those  English  lamenta- 
tions to  the  Academy  of  Medicine.  The  matter  was  prolonged 
by  academical  speeches.  In  a  letter  addressed  to  M.  Grandeau, 
undated,  but  evidently  written  in  August,  1863,  Claude 
Bernard  showed  some  irritation,  a  rare  thing  with  him. 
Declaring  that  he  would  not  go  to  the  Academy  and  listen  to 
the  ' '  nonsense  "  of  "  those  who  protect  animals  in  hatred  of 
mankind"  he  gave  his  concluding  epitome:  "You  ask  me 
what  are  the  principal  discoveries  due  to  vivisection,  so  that 
you  can  mention  them  as  arguments  for  that  kind  of  study. 
All  the  knowledge  possessed  by  experimental  physiology  can 
be  quoted  in  that  connection  ;  there  is  not  a  single  fact  which 
is  not  the  direct  and  necessary  consequence  of  vivisection. 
From  Galen,  who,  by  cutting  the  laryngeal  nerves,  learnt  their 
use  for  respiration  and  the  voice,  to  Harvey,  who  discovered 
circulation  ;  Pecquet  and  Aselli,  the  lymphatic  vessels  ;  Haller, 
muscular  irritability ;  Bell  and  Magendie,  the  nervous  func- 
tions, and  all  that  has  been  learnt  since  the  extension  of  that 
method  of  vivisection,  which  is  the  only  experimental  method; 
in  biology,  all  that  is  known  on  digestion,  circulation,  the 
Hver,  the  sympathetic  system,  the  bones,  Development— all, 
absolutely  all,  is  the  result  of  vivisection,  alone  or  combined 
with  other  means  of  study." 

In  1875,  he  again  returned  to  this  idea  in  his  experimental 
medicine  classes  at  the  College  de  France  :  "  It  is  to  experi- 
mentation that  we  owe  all  our  precise  notions  on  the  functions 
of  the  viscera  and  a  fortiori  on  the  properties  of  such  organs 
as  muscles,  nerves,  etc." 

One  more  interesting  quotation  might  have  been  offered  to 
the    members    of    the    Congress.     A    Swede    had    questioned 


1880—1882  337 

Darwin  on  vivisection,  for  the  anti-vivisectionist  propaganda 
was  spreading  on  every  side.     Darwin,  who,  like  Pasteur,  did 
not  admit  that  useless  suffering  should  be  inflicted  on  animals 
(Pasteur  carried  this  so  far  that  he  would  never,  he  said,  have 
had  the  courage  to  shoot  a  bird  for  sport) — Darwin,  in  a  letter 
dated  April  14th,  1881,  approved  any  measures  that  could  be 
taken  to  prevent  cruelty,  but  he  added  :  "  On  the  other  hand, 
I  know  that  physiology  can  make  no  progress  if  experiments 
on  living  animals  are  suppressed,  and  I  have  an  intimate  con- 
viction that  to  retard  the  progress  of  physiology  is  to  commit 
a  crime  against  humanity.   .   .   .  Unless  one  is  absolutely  igno- 
rant of  all  that  Science  has  done  for  humanity,  one  must  be 
convinced  that  physiology  is  destined  to  render  incalculable 
benefits  in   the  future   to    man    and   even  to    animals.     See 
the    results    obtained   by    M.  Pasteur's   work    on    the    germs 
of    contagious    diseases  :    will    not    animals    be    the    first    to 
profit  thereby?     How  many  lives  have  been  saved,  how  much 
suffering  spared  by  the  discovery  of  parasitic  worms  following 
on    experiments    made    by    Virchow    and    others    on    living 
animals  !  ' ' 

The  London  Congress  marked  a  step  on  the  road  of  progress. 
Besides  the  questions  which  were  discussed  and  which  were 
capable  of  precise  solution,  the  scientific  spirit  showed  itself 
susceptible  of  permeating  other  general  subjects.  Instead  of 
remaining  the  impassive  Sovereign  we  are  wont  to  fancy  her, 
Science — and  this  was  proved  by  Pasteur's  discoveries  and 
their  consequences,  as  Paget,  Tyndall,  Lister,  and  Priestley 
loudly  proclaimed — Science  showed  herself  capable  of  associat- 
ing with  pure  research  and  perpetual  care  for  Truth  a  deep 
feeling  of  compassion  for  all  suffering  and  an  ever-growing 
thirst  for  self-sacrifice. 

Pasteur's  speech  at  the  London  Medical  Congress  was 
printed  at  the  request  of  an  English  M.P.  and  distributed  to 
all  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Dr.  H.  Gueneau 
de  Mussy,  who  had  spent  part  of  his  life  in  England,  having 
followed  the  Orleans  family  into  exile,  wrote  to  Pasteur  on 
August  15,  "I  have  been  very  happy  in  witnessing  your 
triumph ;  you  are  raising  us  up  again  in  the  eyes  of  foreign 
nations." 

Applause  was  to  Pasteur  but  a  stimulus  to  further  efforts. 
He  was  proud  of  his  discoveries,  but  not  vain  of  the  effect  they 
produced ;  he  said  in  a  private  letter  :    ' '  The  Temps  again 

z 


338  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

refers,  in  a  London  letter,  to  my  speech  at  the  Congress.  What 
an  unexpected  success  !  ' ' 

Having  heard  that  yellow  fever  had  just  been  brought  into 
the  Gironde,  at  the  Pauillac  lazaretto  by  the  vessel  CondS  from 
Senegal,  Pasteur  immediately  started  for  Bordeaux.  He 
hoped  to  find  the  microbe  in  the  blood  of  the  sick  or  the  dead, 
and  to  succeed  in  cultivating  it.  M.  Koux  hastened  to  join  his 
master. 

If  people  spoke  to  Pasteur  of  the  dangef  of  infection ,  ' '  What 
does  it  matter?"  he  said.  "Life  in  the  midst  of  danger  is 
the  life,  the  real  life,  the  life  of  sacrifice,  of  example,  of 
fruitfulness." 

He  was  vexed  to  find  his  arrival  notified  in  the  newspapers ; 
it  worried  him  not  to  be  able  to  work  and  to  travel  incognito. 

On  September  17,  he  wrote  to  Mme.  Pasteur  :  ".  .  .  We 
rowed  out  to  a  great  transport  ship  which  is  lying  in  the 
Pauillac  roads,  having  just  arrived.  From  our  boat,  we  were 
able  to  speak  to  the  men  of  the  crew.  Their  health  is  good; 
but  they  lost  seven  persons  at  St.  Louis,  two  passengers  and 
five  men  of  the  crew.  Save  the  captain  and  one  engineer,  they 
are  all  Senegalese  negroes  on  that  ship.  We  have  been  near 
another  large  steamboat,  and  yet  another ;  their  health  is 
equally  good.  .  .  . 

"  The  most  afflicted  ship  is  the  Conde,  which  is  in  quaran- 
tine in  the  Pauillac  roads,  and  near  which  we  have  not  been 
able  to  go.  She  has  lost  eighteen  persons,  either  at  sea  or  at 
the  lazaretto.   ..." 

No  experiment  could  be  attempted — the  patients  were  con- 
valescent. "But,"  he  wrote  the  next  day,  "the  Richelieu 
will  arrive  between  the  26th  and  28th,  I  think  with  some 
passengers.  ...  It  is  more  than  likely  that  there  will  have 
been  deaths  during  the  passage,  and  patients  for  the  lazaretto. 
I  am  therefore  awaiting  the  arrival  of  that  ship  with  the  hope 
— God  forgive  a  scientist's  passion  !  ! — that  I  may  attempt 
some  researches  at  the  Pauillac  lazaretto,  where  I  will  arrange 
things  in  consequence.  You  may  be  sure  I  shall  take 
every  precaution.  In  the  meanwhile,  what  shall  I  do  in 
Bordeaux  ? 

"  I  have  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  young  librarian  of 
the  town  library,  which  is  a  few  doors  from  the  Hotel 
Eichelieu,  in  the  Avenues  of  Tourny.  The  library  is  opened 
to  me  at  all  hours  :  I  am  there  even  now,  alone  and  very  com- 


1880—1882  339 

fortably   seated,    surrounded    with    more    Littr^   than    I   can 
possibly  get  through." 

For  some  months,  several  members  of  the  Academie 
Fran^aise — according  to  the  traditions  of  the  Society  which 
has  ever  thought  it  an  honour  to  number  among  its  members 
scientists  such  as  Cuvier,  Flourens,  Biot,  Claude  Bernard, 
J.  B.  Dumas — had  been  urging  Pasteur  to  become  a  candidate  to 
the  place  left  vacant  by  Littr^.  Pasteur  was  anxious  to  know 
not  only  the  works,  but  the  life  of  him  whose  place  he  might 
be  called  uponf  to  fill.  It  was  with  some  emotion  that  he  first 
came  upon  the  following  lines  printed  on  the  title-page  of  the 
translation  of  the  works  of  Hippocrates ;  they  are  a  dedication 
by  Littre  to  the  memory  of  his  father,  a  sergeant-major  in  the 
Marines  under  the  Kevolution. 

"...  Prepared  by  his  lessons  and  by  his  example,  I  have 
been  sustained  through  this  long  work  by  his  ever  present 
memory.  I  wish  to  inscribe  his  name  on  the  first  page  of  this 
book,  in  the  writing  of  which  he  has  had  so  much  share  from 
his  grave ,  so  that  the  work  of  the  father  should  not  be  forgotten 
in  the  work  of  the  son,  and  that  a  pious  and  just  gratitude 
should  connect  the  work  of  the  living  with  the  heritage  of  the 
dead.  ..." 

Pasteur  in  1876  had  obeyed  a  similar  filial  feeling  when  he 
wrote  on  the  first  page  of  his  Studies  on  Beer — 

"To  the  memory  of  my  father,  a  soldier  under  the  first 
Empire,  and  a  knight  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  The  more 
I  have  advanced  in  age,  the  better  I  have  understood  thy  love 
and  the  superiority  of  thy  reason.  The  efforts  I  have  given 
to  these  Studies  and  those  which  have  preceded  them  are  the 
fruit  of  thy  example  and  advice.  Wishing  to  honour  these 
pious  recollections,  I  dedicate  this  work  to  thy  memory." 

The  two  dedications  are  very  similar.  Those  two  soldiers' 
sons  had  kept  the  virile  imprint  of  the  paternal  virtues.  A 
great  tenderness  was  also  in  them  both ;  Littre,  when  he  lost 
his  mother,  had  felt  a  terrible  grief,  comparable  to  Pasteur's 
under  the  same  circumstances. 

In  spite  of  Pasteur's  interest  in  studying  Littre  in  the 
Bordeaux  library,  he  did  not  cease  thinking  of  yellow  fever. 
He  often  saw  M.  Berchon,  the  sanitary  director,  and  inquired 
of  him  whether  there  were  any  news  of  the  Richelieu.  A 
young  physician.  Dr.  Talmy,  had  expressed  a  desire  to  join 
Pasteur  at  Bordeaux  and  to  obtain  permission,  when  the  time 

z  2 


340  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

came,  to  be  shut  up  with  the  patients  in  the  lazaretto.  Pasteur 
wrote  on  December  25  to  Mme.  Pasteur  :  "There  is  nothing 
new  save  the  Minister's  authorization  to  Dr.  Talmy  to  enter 
the  lazaretto ;  I  have  just  telegraphed  to  him  that  he  might 
start.  The  owners  of  the  Richelieu  still  suppose  that  she  will 
reach  Pauillac  on  Tuesday.  M.  Berchon,  who  is  the  first  to 
be  informed  of  what  takes  place  in  the  roads,  will  send  me  a 
telegram  as  soon  as  the  Richelieu  is  signalled,  and  we  shall 
then  go — M.  Talmy,  Koux  and  I — to  ascertain  the  state  of 
the  ship,  of  course  without  going  on  board,  which  we  should 
not  be  allowed  to  do  if  it  has  a  suspicious  bill  of  health." 

And,  as  Mme.  Pasteur  had  asked  what  happened  when  a 
ship  arrived,  he  continued  in  the  same  letter  :  "  From  his 
boat  to  windward,  M,  Berchon  receives  the  ship's  papers, 
giving  the  sanitary  state  of  the  ship  day  by  day.  Before  pass- 
ing from  the  hands  of  the  captain  of  the  vessel  to  those  of  the 
sanitary  director,  the  papers  are  sprinkled  over  with  chloride 
of  lime. 

"  If  there  are  cases  of  illness,  all  the  passengers  are  taken 
to  the  lazaretto ;  only  a  few  men  are  left  on  board  the  ship, 
which  is  henceforth  in  quarantine,  no  one  being  allowed  to 
leave  or  enter  it. 

"  God  permit  that,  in  the  body  of  one  of  those  unfortunate 
victims  of  medical  ignorance,  I  may  discover  some  specific 
microscopic  being.  And  after  that?  Afterwards,  it  would  be 
really  beautiful  to  make  that  agent  of  disease  and  death  become 
its  own  vaccine.  Yellow  fever  is  one  of  the  three  great  scourges 
of  the  East — bubonic  plague,  cholera,  and  yellow  fever.  Do 
you  know  that  it  is  already  a  fine  thing  to  be  able  to  put  the 
problem  in  those  words !  ' ' 

The  Richelieu  arrived,  but  she  was  free  from  fever.  The 
last  passenger  had  died  during  the  crossing  and  his  body  had 
been  thrown  into  the  sea. 

Pasteur  left  Bordeaux  and  returned  to  his  laboratory. 


CHAPTEE   XI 

1882—1884 

Pasteur  was  in  the  midst  of  some  new  experiments  when  he 
heard  that  the  date  of  the  election  to  the  Acad6mie  Fran9aise 
was  fixed  for  December  8.  Certain  candidates  spent  half  their 
time  in  fiacres,  paying  the  traditional  calls,  counting  the 
voters,  calculating  their  chances,  and  taking  every  polite  phrase 
for  a  promise.  Pasteur,  with  perfect  simplicity,  contented 
himself  with  saying  to  the  Academicians  whom  he  went  to  see, 
"I  had  never  in  my  life  contemplated  the  great  honour  of 
entering  the  Academic  Frangaise.  People  have  been  kind 
enough  to  say  to  me,  *  Stand  and  you  will  be  elected.'  It  is 
impossible  to  resist  an  invitation  so  glorious  for  Science  and 
so  flattering  to  myself." 

One  member  of  the  Academic,  Alexandre  Dumas,  refused  to 
let  Pasteur  call  on  him.  "  I  will  not  allow  him  to  come  and 
see  me,"  he  said  ;  "  I  will  myself  go  and  thank  him  for  consent- 
ing to  become  one  of  us,"  He  agreed  with  M.  Grandeau,  who 
wrote  to  Pasteur  that  ' '  when  Claude  Bernard  and  Pasteur  con- 
sent to  enter  the  ranks  of  a  Society,  all  the  honour  is  for  the 
latter." 

When  Pasteur  was  elec]Eed,hi8  youthfulness  of  sentiment  was 
made  apparent ;  it  seemed  to  him  an  immense  honour  to  be 
one  of  the  Forty.  He  therefore  prepared  his  reception  speech 
with  the  greatest  care,  without  however  allowing  his  scientific 
work  to  suffer.  The  life  of  his  predecessor  interested  him  more 
and  more  ;  to  work  in  the  midst  of  family  intimacy  had  evidently 
been  Littre's  ideal  of  happiness. 

Few  people,  beyond  Littre's  colleagues,  know  that  his  wife 
and  daughter  collaborated  in  his  great  work ;  they  looked  out 
the  quotations  necessary  to  that  Dictionary,  of  which,  if  laid 
end  to  end,  the  columns  would  reach  a  length  of  thirty- 
seven  kilometres.     The  Dictionary,  commenced  in  1857,  when 


342  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Littr6  was  almost  sixty  years  old,  was  only  interrupted  twice  : 
in  1861,  when  Auguste  Comte's  widow  asked  Littre  for  a 
biography  of  the  founder  of  positive  philosophy;  and  in  1870, 
when  the  life  of  France  was  compromised  and  arrested  during 
long  months. 

Littr6,  poor  and  disinterested  as  he  was,  had  been  able  to 
realize  his  only  dream,  which  was  to  possess  a  house  in  the 
country.  Pasteur,  bringing  to  bear  in  this,  as  in  all  things, 
his  habits  of  scrupulous  accuracy,  left  his  laboratory  for  one 
day,  and  visited  that  villa,  situated  near  Maisons-Laffitte. 

The  gardener  who  opened  the  door  to  him  might  have  been 
the  owner  of  that  humble  dwelling ;  the  house  was  in  a  bad 
state  of  repair,  but  the  small  garden  gave  a  look  of  comfort  to 
the  little  property.  It  had  been  the  only  luxury  of  the 
philosopher,  who  enjoyed  cultivating  vegetables  while  quoting 
Virgil,  Horace  or  La  Fontaine,  and  listened  to  the  nightingale 
when  early  dawn  found  him  still  sitting  at  his  work. 

After  visiting  this  house  and  garden,  reflecting  as  they  did 
the  life  of  a  sage,  Pasteur  said  sadly,  "  Is  it  possible  that  such 
a  man  should  have  been  so  misjudged  ! ' ' 

A  crucifix,  hanging  in  the  room  where  Littr^'s  family  were 
wont  to  work,  testified  to  his  respect  for  the  beliefs  of  his  wife 
and  daughter.  "  I  know  too  well,"  he  said  one  day,  "what 
are  the  sufferings  and  difficulties  of  human  life,  to  wish  to  take 
from  any  one  convictions  which  may  comfort  them." 

Pasteur  also  studied  the  Positivist  doctrine  of  which  Augusta 
Comte  had  been  the  pontiff  and  Littr6  the  prophet.  This 
scientific  conception  of  the  world  affirms  nothing,  denies 
nothing,  beyond  what  is  visible  and  easily  demonstrated.  It 
suggests  altruism ,  a  "  subordination  of  personality  to 
sociability,"  it  inspii-es  patriotism  and  the  love  of  humanity. 
Pasteur,  in  his  scrupulously  positive  and  accurate  work,  his 
constant  thought  for  others,  his  self-sacrificing  devotion  to 
humanity,  might  have  been  supposed  to  be  an  adept  of  this 
doctrine.  But  he  found  it  lacking  in  one  great  point. 
"  Positivism,"  he  said,  "does  not  take  into  account  the  most 
important  of  positive  notions,  that  of  the  Infinite."  He  won- 
dered that  Positivism  should  confine  the  mind  within  limits ; 
with  an  impulse  of  deep  feeling,  Pasteur,  the  scientist,  the  slow 
and  precise  observer,  wrote  the  following  passage  in  his 
speech  :  "  What  is  beyond?  the  human  mind,  actuated  by  an 
invincible   force,   will  never    cease   to    ask    itself :    What    is 


1882—1884  343 

beyond?  ...  It  is  of  no  use  to  answer  :  Beyond  is  limitless 
space,  limitless  time  or  limitless  grandeur;  no  one  understands 
those  words.  He  who  proclaims  the  existence  of  the  Infinite 
— and  none  can  avoid  it — accumulates  in  that  affirmation  more 
of  the  supernatural  than  is  to  be  found  in  all  the  miracles  of 
all  the  religions ;  for  the  notion  of  the  Infinite  presents  that 
double  character  that  it  forces  itself  upon  us  and  yet  is  incom- 
prehensible. When  this  notion  seizes  upon  our  understand- 
ing, we  can  but  kneel.  ...  I  see  everywhere  the  inevitable 
expression  of  the  Infinite  in  the  world ;  through  it,  the  super- 
natural is  at  the  bottom  of  every  heart.  The  idea  of  God  is  a 
form  of  the  idea  of  the  Infinite.  As  long  as  the  mystery  of  the 
Infinite  weighs  on  human  thought,  temples  will  be  erected 
for  the  worship  of  the  Infinite,  whether  God  is  called  Brahma, 
Allah,  Jehovah,  or  Jesus;  and  on  the  pavement  of  those 
temples,  men  will  be  seen  kneeling,  prostrated,  annihilated  in 
the  thought  of  the  Infinite." 

At  that  time,  when  triumphant  Positivism  was  inspiring 
many  leaders  of  men,  the  very  man  who  might  have  given  him- 
self up  to  what  he  called  ' '  the  enchantment  of  Science  ' '  pro- 
claimed the  Mystery  of  the  universe ;  with  his  intellectual 
humility,  Pasteur  bowed  before  a  Power  greater  than  human 
power.  He  continued  with  the  following  words,  worthy  of 
being  preserved  for  ever,  for  they  are  of  those  which  pass  over 
humanity  like  a  Divine  breath  :  ' '  Blessed  is  he  who  carries 
within  himself  a  God,  an  ideal,  and  who  obeys  it;  ideal  of  art, 
ideal  of  science,  ideal  of  the  gospel  virtues,  therein  lie  the 
springs  of  great  thoughts  and  great  actions;  they  all  reflect 
light  from  the  Infinite." 

Pasteur  concluded  by  a  supreme  homage  to  Littr^.  ' '  Often 
have  I  fancied  him  seated  by  his  wife,  as  in  a  picture  of  early 
Christian  times  :  he,  looking  down  upon  earth,  full  of  com- 
passion for  human  suffering ;  she,  a  fervent  Catholic,  her  eyes 
raised  to  heaven  :  he,  inspired  by  all  earthly  virtues;  she,  by 
every  Divine  grandeur ;  uniting  in  one  impulse  and  in  one 
heart  the  twofold  holiness  which  forms  the  aureole  of  the  Man- 
God,  the  one  proceeding  from  devotion  to  humanity,  the  other 
emanating  from  ardent  love  for  the  Divinity  :  she  a  saint  in 
the  canonic  sense  of  the  word,  he  a  lay-saint.  This  last  word 
is  not  mine ;  I  have  gathered  it  on  the  lips  of  all  those  that 
knew  him." 

The  two    colleagues    whom   Pasteur    had    chosen    for   his 


344  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Academic  sponsors  were  J.  B.  Dumas  and  Nisard.  Dumas, 
who  appreciated  more  than  any  one  the  scientific  progress  due 
to  Pasteur,  and  who  applauded  his  brilliant  success,  was 
touched  by  the  simplicity  and  modesty  which  his  former  pupil 
showed,  now  as  in  the  distant  past,  when  the  then  obscure 
young  man  sat  taking  notes  on  the  Sorbonne  benches. 

Their  mutual  relationship  had  remained  unchanged  when 
Pasteur,  accompanied  by  one  of  his  family,  rang  at  Dumas' 
door  in  March,  1882,  with  the  manuscript  of  his  noble  speech 
in  his  pocket ;  he  seemed  more  like  a  student,  respectfully  call- 
ing on  his  master,  than  like  a  savant  affectionately  visiting  a 
colleague. 

Dumas  received  Pasteur  in  a  little  private  study  adjoining 
the  fine  drawing-room  where  he  was  accustomed  to  dispense 
an  elegant  hospitality.  Pasteur  drew  a  stool  up  to  a  table  and 
began  to  read,  but  in  a  shy  and  hurried  manner,  without  even 
raising  his  eyes  towards  Dumas,  who  listened,  enthroned  in 
his  armchair,  with  an  occasional  murmur  of  approbation. 
Whilst  Pasteur's  careworn  face  revealed  some  of  his  ardent 
struggles  and  persevering  work,  nothing  perturbed  Dumas' 
grave  and  gentle  countenance.  His  smile,  at  most  times  pru- 
dently affable  and  benevolent  in  varying  degree,  now  frankly 
illumined  his  face  as  he  congratulated  Pasteur.  He  called  to 
mind  his  own  reception  speech  at  the  Academy  when  he  had 
succeeded  Guizot,  and  the  fact  that  he  too  had  concluded  by  a 
confession  of  faith  in  his  Creator. 

Pasteur's  other  sponsor,  Nisard,  almost  an  octogenarian, 
was  not  so  happy  as  Dumas ;  death  had  deprived  him  of  almost 
all  his  old  friends.  It  was  a  great  joy  to  him  when  Pasteur 
came  to  see  him  on  the  wintry  Sunday  afternoons ;  he  fancied 
himself  back  again  at  the  Ecole  Normale  and  the  happy  days 
when  he  reigned  supreme  in  that  establishment.  Pasteur's 
deference,  greater  even  perhaps  than  it  had  been  in  former 
times,  aided  the  delightful  delusion.  Though  Nisard  was  ever 
inclined  to  bring  a  shade  of  patronage  into  every  intimacy,  he 
was  a  conversationalist  of  the  old  and  rare  stamp.  Pasteur 
enjoyed  hearing  Nisard's  recollections  and  watching  for  a  smile 
lighting  up  the  almost  blind  face.  Those  Sunday  talks 
reminded  him  of  the  old  delightful  conversations  with  Chappuis 
at  the  Besan^on  College  when,  in  their  youthful  fervour,  they 
read  together  Andre  Ch^nier's  and  Lamartine's  verses. 
Eighteen  years  later,  Pasteur  had  not  missed  one  of  Sainte 


1882—1884  345 

Beuve's  lectures  to  the  Ecole  Normale  students ;  he  liked  that 
varied  and  penetrating  criticism,  opening  sidelights  on  every 
point  of  the  literary  horizon.  Nisard  understood  criticism 
rather  as  a  solemn  treaty,  with  clauses  and  conditions ;  with 
his  taste  for  hierarchy,  he  even  gave  different  ranks  to  authors 
as  if  they  had  been  students  before  his  chair.  But,  when  he 
spoke,  the  rigidity  of  his  system  was  enveloped  in  the  grace 
of  his  conversation.  Pasteur  had  but  a  restricted  corner  of  his 
mind  to  give  to  literature,  but  that  corner  was  a  privileged 
one ;  he  only  read  what  was  really  worth  reading ,  and  every 
writer  worthy  of  the  name  inspired  him  with  more  than  esteem, 
with  absolute  respect.  He  had  a  most  exalted  idea  of  Literature 
and  its  influence  on  society ;  he  was  saying  one  day  to  Nisard 
that  Literature  was  a  great  educator  :  "  The  mind  alone  can 
if  necessary  suffice  to  Science ;  both  the  mind  and  the  heart 
intervene  in  Literature,  and  that  explains  the  secret  of  its 
superiority  in  leading  the  general  train  of  thought."  This  was 
preaching  to  an  apostle  :  no  homage  to  literature  ever  seemed 
too  great  in  the  eyes  of  Nisard. 

He  approved  of  the  modest  exordium  in  Pasteur's  speech — 

"  At  this  moment  when  presenting  myself  before  this  illus- 
trious assembly ,  I  feel  once  more  the  emotion  with  which  I  first 
solicited  your  suffrages.  The  sense  of  my  own  inadequacy  is 
borne  in  upon  me  afresh,  and  I  should  feel  some  confusion  in 
finding  myself  in  this  place,  were  it  not  my  duty  to  attribute 
to  Science  itself  the  honour — so  to  speak,  an  impersonal  one — 
which  you  have  bestowed  upon  me." 

The  Permanent  Secretary,  Camille  Doucet,  well  versed  in 
the  usages  of  the  Institute,  and  preoccupied  with  the  effect  pro- 
duced, thought  that  the  public  would  not  believe  in  such  self- 
effacement,  sincere  as  it  was,  and  sent  the  following  letter  to 
Pasteur  with  the  proof-sheet  of  his  speech — 

"  Dear  and  honoured  colleague,  allow  me  to  suggest  to  you  a 
modification  of  your  first  sentence  ;  your  modesty  is  excessive." 

Camille  Doucet  had  struck  out  the  sense  of  my  own 
inadequacy  is  home  in  wpon  me  afresh,  and  further  so  to  speak, 
an  impersonal  one.  Pasteur  consulted  Nisard,  and  the  sense 
of  my  own  inadequacy  was  replaced  by  the  sense  of  my 
deficiencies,  while  Pasteur  adhered  energetically  to  so  to  speak, 
an  impersonal  one ;  he  saw  in  his  election  less  a  particular  dis- 
tinction than  a  homage  rendered  to  Science  in  general. 

A  reception  at  the  Academie  Prangaise  is  like  a  sensational 


346  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

first  night  at  a  theatre ;  a  special  pubhc  is  interested  days 
beforehand  in  every  coming  detail.  Wives,  daughters,  sisters 
of  Academicians,  great  ladies  interested  in  coming  candidates, 
widows  of  deceased  Academicians,  laureates  of  various 
Academy  prizes — the  whole  literary  world  agitates  to  obtain 
tickets.  Pasteur's  reception  promised  to  be  full  of  interest, 
some  even  said  piquancy,  for  it  fell  to  Eenan  to  welcome  him. 

In  order  to  have  a  foretaste  of  the  contrast  between  the  two 
men  it  was  sufficient  to  recall  Kenan's  opening  speech  three 
years  before,  when  he  succeeded  Claude  Bernard.  His  thanks 
to  his  colleagues  began  thus — 

"  Your  cenaculum  is  only  reached  at  the  age  of  Ecclesiastes, 
a  delightful  age  of  serene  cheerfulness,  when  after  a  laborious 
prime,  it  begins  to  be  seen  that  all  is  but^-vanity,  but  also  that 
some  vain  things  are  worthy  of  being  lingeringly  enjoyed." 

The  two  minds  were  as  different  as  the  two  speeches ; 
Pasteur  took  everything  seriously,  giving  to  words  their  abso- 
lute sense;  Eenan,  an  incomparable  writer,  with  his  supple, 
undulating  style,  slipped  away  and  hid  himself  within  the 
sinuosities  of  his  ow^n  philosophy.  He  disliked  plain  state- 
ments, and  was  ever  ready  to  deny  when  others  affirmed,  even 
if  he  afterwards  blamed  excessive  negation  in  his  own  followers. 
He  religiously  consoled  those  whose  faith  he  destroyed,  and, 
whilst  invoking  the  Eternal,  claimed  the  right  of  finding  fault 
even  there.  When  applauded  by  a  crowd,  he  would  willingly 
have  murmured  Noli  me  tang  ere,  and  even  added  with  his  joyful 
mixture  of  disdain  and  good-fellowship,  "  Let  infinitely  witty 
men  come  unto  me." 

On  that  Thursday,  April  27, 1882,  the  Institute  was  crowded. 
When  the  noise  had  subsided,  Eenan,  seated  at  the  desk  as 
Director  of  the  Academy  between  Camille  Doucet,  the  Per- 
manent Secretary,  and  Maxime  du  Camp,  the  Chancellor, 
declared  the  meeting  opened.  Pasteur,  looking  paler  than 
usual,  rose  from  his  seat,  dressed  in  the  customary  green- 
embroidered  coat  of  an  Academician,  wearing  across  his  breast 
the  Grand  Cordon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  In  a  clear,  grave 
voice,  he  began  by  expressing  his  deep  gratification,  and,  with 
the  absolute  knowledge  and  sincerity  which  always  compelled 
the  attention  of  his  audience,  of  w^hatever  kind,  he  proceeded 
to  praise  his  predecessor.  There  was  no  artifice  of  composi- 
tion, no  struggle  after  effect,  only  a  homage  to  the  man,  fol- 
lowed   almost    immediately    by    a   confession    of    dissent    on 


1882—1884  347 

philosophic  questions.  He  was  listened  to  with  attentive 
emotion,  and  when  he  showed  the  error  of  Positivism  in 
attempting  to  do  away  with  the  idea  of  the  Infinite,  and  pro- 
claimed the  instinctive  and  necessary  worship  by  Man  of  the 
great  Mystery,  he  seemed  to  bring  out  all  the  weakness  and 
the  dignity  of  Man — passing  through  this  world  bowed  under 
the  law  of  Toil  and  with  the  prescience  of  the  Ideal — into  a 
startling  and  consolatory  light. 

One  of  the  privileges  of  the  Academician  who  receives  a  new 
member  is  to  remain  seated  in  his  armchair  before  a  table,  and 
to  comfortably  prepare  to  read  his  own  speech,  in  answer, 
often  in  contradiction,  to  the  first.  Eenan,  visibly  enjoying 
the  presidential  chair,  smiled  at  the  audience  with  complex 
feelings,  understood  by  some  who  were  his  assiduous  readers. 
Eespect  for  so  much  work  achieved  by  a  scientist  of  the  first 
rank  in  the  world ;  a  gratified  feeling  of  the  honour  which 
reverted  to  France ;  some  personal  pleasure  in  welcoming  such 
a  man  in  the  name  of  the  Academie,  and,  at  the  same  time,  in 
the  opportunity  for  a  light  and  ironical  answer  to  Pasteur's 
beliefs — all  these  sensations  were  perceptible  in  Eenan 's 
powerful  face,  the  benevolence  of  whose  soft  blue  eyes  was 
corrected  by  the  redoubtable  keenness  of  the  smile. 

He  began  in  a  caressing  voice  by  acknowledging  that  the 
Academy  was  somewhat  incompetent  to  judge  of  the  work 
and  glory  of  Pasteur.  "But,"  he  added,  with  graceful 
eloquence,  "apart  from  the  ground  of  the  doctrine,  which  is 
not  within  our  attributions,  there  is.  Sir,  a  greatness  on  which 
our  experience  of  the  human  mind  gives  us  a  right  to 
pronounce  an  opinion ;  something  which  we  recognize  in  the 
most  varied  applications,  which  belongs  in  the  same  degree  to 
Galileo,  Pascal,  Michael- Angelo ,  or  Moliere  ;  something  which 
gives  subhmity  to  the  poet,  depth  to  the  philosopher,  fascina- 
tion to  the  orator,  divination  to  the  scientist. 

"That  common  basis  of  all  beautiful  and  true  work,  that 
divine  fire,  that  indefinable  breath  which  inspires  Science, 
Literature,  and  Art — we  have  found  it  in  you,  Sir — it  is 
Genius.  No  one  has  walked  so  surely  through  the  circles  of 
elemental  nature ;  your  scientific  Hfe  is  like  unto  a  luminous 
tract  in  the  great  night  of  the  Infinitesimally  Small,  in  that 
last  abyss  where  life  is  born." 

After  a  brilliant  and  rapid  enumeration  of  the  Pastorian 
discoveries,  congratulating  Pasteur  on  having  touched  through 


348  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

his  art  the  very  confines  of  the  springs  of  life,  Renan  went 
on  to  speak  of  truth  as  he  would  have  spoken  of  a  woman  : 
"  Truth,  Sir,  is  a  great  coquette ;  she  will  not  be  sought  with 
too  much  passion,  but  often  is  most  amenable  to  indifference. 
She  escapes  when  apparently  caught,  but  gives  herself  up 
if  patiently  waited  for ;  revealing  herself  after  farewells  have 
been  said,  but  inexorable  when  loved  with  too  much  fervour." 
And  further  :  ' '  Nature  is  plebeian ,  and  insists  upon  work , 
preferring  horny  hands  and  careworn  brows." 

He  then  commenced  a  courteous  controversy.  Whilst 
Pasteur,  with  his  vision  of  the  Infinite,  showed  himself  as 
religious  as  Newton,  Renan,  who  enjoyed  moral  problems, 
spoke  of  Doubt  with  delectation.  "  The  answer  to  the  enigma 
which  torments  and  charms  us  will  never  be  given  to  us. 
.  .  .  What  matters  it,  since  the  imperceptible  corner  of 
reality  which  we  see  is  full  of  delicious  harmonies,  and  since 
life,  as  bestowed  upon  us,  is  an  excellent  gift,  and  for  each  of 
us  a  revelation  of  infinite  goodness  ?  ' ' 

Legend  will  probably  hand  to  posterity  a  picture  of  Renan 
as  he  was  in  those  latter  days,  ironically  cheerful  and 
unctuously  indulgent.  But,  before  attaining  the  quizzical 
tranquillity  he  now  exhibited  to  the  Academy,  he  had  gone 
through  a  complete  evolution.  When  about  the  age  of  forty- 
eight,  he  might  bitterly  have  owned  that  there  was  not  one 
basis  of  thought  which  in  him  had  not  crumbled  to  dust. 
Beliefs,  political  ideas,  his  ideal  of  European  civilization,  all 
had  fallen  to  the  ground.  After  his  separation  from  the 
Church,  he  had  turned  to  historical  science;  Germany  had 
appeared  to  him,  as  once  to  Madame  de  Stael  and  so  many 
others,  as  a  refuge  for  thinkers.  It  had  seemed  to  him 
that  a  collaboration  between  France,  England,  and  Germany 
would  create  "An  invincible  trinity,  carrying  the  world  along 
the  road  of  progress  through  reason."  But  that  German 
faQade  which  he  took  for  that  of  a  temple  hid  behind  it  the 
most  formidable  barracks  which  Europe  had  ever  known,  and 
beside  it  were  cannon  foundries,  death-manufactories,  all  the 
preparations  of  the  German  people  for  the  invasion  of  France. 
His  awakening  was  bitter ;  war  as  practised  by  the  Prussians , 
with  a  method  in  their  cruelty,  filled  him  with  grief. 

Time  passed  and  his  art,  like  a  lily  of  the  desert  growing 
amongst  ruins,  gave  flowers  and  perfumes  to  surrounding 
moral  devastation.     A  mixture  of  disdain  and  nobility  now 


1882—1884  349 

made  him  regard  as  almost  imperceptible  the  number  of  men 
capable  of  understanding  his  philosophical  elevation.  Pasteur 
had  bared  his  soul ;  Eenan  took  pleasure  in  throwing  light  on 
the  intellectual  antithesis  of  certain  minds,  and  on  their  points 
of  contact. 

"  Allow  me,  Sir,  to  recall  to  you  your  fine  discovery  of  right 
and  left  tartaric  acids.  .  .  ,  There  are  some  minds  which 
it  is  as  impossible  to  bring  together  as  it  is  impossible,  accord- 
ing to  your  own  comparison,  to  fit  two  gloves  one  into  the 
other.  And  yet  both  gloves  are  equally  necessary ;  they  com- 
plete each  other.  One's  two  hands  cannot  be  superposed,  they 
may  be  joined.  In  the  vast  bosom  of  nature,  the  most  diverse 
efforts,  added  to  each  other,  combine  with  each  other,  and 
result  in  a  most  majestic  unity." 

Eenan  handled  the  French  language ,  ' '  this  old  and  admir- 
able language,  poor  but  to  those  who  do  not  know  it,"  with  a 
dexterity,  a  choice  of  delicate  shades,  of  tasteful  harmonies 
which  have  never  been  surpassed.  Able  as  he  was  to  define 
every  human  feeling,  he  went  on  from  the  above  comparison, 
painting  divergent  intellectual  capabilities,  to  the  following 
imprecation  against  death:  "Death,  according  to  a  thought 
admired  by  M.  Littre,  is  but  a  function,  the  last  and  quietest 
of  all.  To  me  it  seems  odious,  hateful,  insane,  when  it  lays 
its  cold  blind  hand  on  virtue  and  on  genius.  A  voice  is  in 
us,  which  only  great  and  good  souls  can  hear,  and  that  voice 
cries  unceasingly  '  Truth  and  Good  are  the  ends  of  thy  life ; 
sacrifice  all  to  that  goal ' ;  and  when,  following  the  call  of  that 
siren  within  us,  claiming  to  bear  the  promises  of  life,  we 
reach  the  place  where  the  reward  should  await  us,  the  deceit- 
ful consoler  fails  us.  Philosophy,  which  had  promised  us  the 
secret  of  death,  makes  a  lame  apology,  and  the  ideal  which 
had  brought  us  to  the  limits  of  the  air  we  breathe  disappears 
from  view  at  the  supreme  hour  when  we  look  for  it.  Nature's 
object  has  been  attained;  a  powerful  effort  has  been  realized, 
and  then,  with  characteristic  carelessness,  the  enchantress 
abandons  us  and  leaves  us  to  the  hooting  birds  of  the  night." 

Eenan,  save  in  one  little  sentence  in  his  answer  to  Pasteur — 
"  The  divine  work  accomplishes  itself  by  the  intimate  tendency 
to  what  is  Good  and  what  is  True  in  the  universe" — did  not 
go  further  into  the  statement  of  his  doctrines.  Perhaps  he 
thought  them  too  austere  for  his  audience ;  he  was  wont  to 
eschew  critical  and  religious  considerations  when  in  a  world 


350  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

which  he  looked  upon  as  frivolous.  Moreover,  he  thought  his 
ovs^n  century  amusing,  and  was  willing  to  amuse  it  further. 
If  he  raised  his  eyes  to  Heaven,  he  said  that  we  owe  virtue 
to  the  Eternal,  but  that  we  have  the  right  to  add  to  it  irony. 
Pasteur  thought  it  strange  that  irony  should  be  applied  to 
subjects  which  have  beset  so  many  great  minds  and  which  so 
many  simple  hearts  solve  in  their  own  way. 

The  week  which  followed  Pasteur's  reception  at  the  Aca- 
demic Frangaise  brought  him  a  manifestation  of  applause 
in  the  provinces.  The  town  of  Aubenas  in  the  Ardfeche 
was  erecting  a  statue  to  Olivier  de  Serres,  and  desired  to  asso- 
ciate with  the  name  of  the  founder  of  the  silk  industry  in 
France  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  of  its  preserver  in  the 
nineteenth. 

This  was  the  second  time  that  a  French  town  proclaimed 
its  gratitude  towards  Pasteur.  A  few  months  before,  the 
Melun  Agricultural  Society  had  held  a  special  meeting  in  his 
honour,  and  had  decided  "to  strike  a  medal  with  Pasteur's 
eiSgy  on  it,  in  commemoration  of  one  of  the  greatest  services 
ever  rendered  by  Science  to  Agriculture." 

But  amidst  this  paean  of  praise,  Pasteur,  instead  of  dwelling 
complacently  on  the  recollection  of  his  experiments  at  Pouilly 
le  Fort,  was  absorbed  in  one  idea,  characteristic  of  the  man  : 
he  wanted  to  at  once  begin  some  experiments  on  the  peri- 
pneumonia of  horned  cattle.  The  veterinary  surgeon, 
Eossignol,  had  just  been  speaking  on  this  subject  to  the  meet- 
ing. Pasteur,  who  had  recently  been  asked  by  the  Committee 
of  Epizootic  Diseases  to  inquire  into  the  mortality  often  caused 
by  the  inoculation  of  the  peripneumonia  virus,  reminded  his 
hearers  in  a  few  words  of  the  variable  qualities  of  virus  and 
how  the  slightest  impurity  in  a  virus  may  exercise  an  influence 
on  the  effects  of  that  virus. 

He  and  his  collaborators  had  vainly  tried  to  cultivate  the 
virus  of  peripneumonia  in  chicken-broth,  veal-broth,  yeast- 
water,  etc.  They  had  to  gather  the  virus  from  the  lung  of  a 
cow  which  had  died  of  peripneumonia,  by  means  of  tubes 
previously  sterilized;  it  was  injected,  with  every  precaution 
against  alteration,  under  the  skin  of  the  tail  of  the  animal, 
this  part  being  chosen  on  account  of  the  thickness  of  the  skin 
and  of  the  cellular  tissue.  By  operating  on  other  parts, 
serious  accidents  were  apt  to  occur,  the  virus  being  extremely 


X 


188^—1884  351 

violent,  so  much  so  in  fact  that  the  local  irritation  sometimes 
went  so  far  as  to  cause  the  loss  of  part  of  the  tail.  At  the  end 
of  the  same  year  (1882),  Pasteur  published  in  the  Recueil  de  la 
Medecine  Vdterinaire  a  paper  indicating  the  following  means 
of  preserving  the  virus  in  a  state  of  purity — 

"Pure  virus  remains  virulent  for  weeks  and  months.  One 
lung  is  sufficient  to  provide  large  quantities  of  it,  and  its  purity 
can  easily  be  tested  in  a  stove  and  even  in  ordinary  tem- 
perature. From  one  lung  only,  enough  can  be  procured  to 
be  used  for  many  animals.  Moreover,  without  having  recourse 
to  additional  lungs,  the  provision  of  virus  could  be  maintained 
in  the  following  manner;  it  would  suffice,  before  exhausting 
the  first  stock  of  virus,  to  inoculate  a  young  calf  behind  the 
shoulder.  Death  speedily  supervenes,  and  all  the  tissues  are 
infiltrated  with  a  serosity,  which  in  its  turn  becomes  virulent. 
This  also  can  be  collected  and  preserved  in  a  state  of  purity." 
It  remained  to  be  seen  whether  virus  thus  preserved  would 
become  so  attenuated  as  to  lose  all  degree  of  virulence. 

Aubenas,  then,  wished  to  follow  the  example  of  Melun.  In 
deference  to  the  unanimous  wish  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
little  town,  Pasteur  went  there  on  the  4th  of  May.  His  arrival 
was  a  veritable  triumph  ;  there  were  decorations  at  the  station, 
floral  arches  in  the  streets,  brass  and  other  bands,  speeches 
from  the  Mayor,  presentation  of  the  Municipal  Council,  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  etc.,  etc.  Excitement  reigned 
everywhere,  and  the  music  of  the  bands  was  almost  drowned 
by  the  acclamations  of  the  people.  At  the  meeting-  of  the 
Agricultural  Society,  Pasteur  was  offered  a  medal  with  his 
own  effigy,  and  a  work  of  art  representing  genii  around  a  cup, 
their  hands  full  of  cocoons.  A  little  microscope — that  micro- 
scope which  had  been  called  an  impracticable  instrument,  fit 
for  scientists  only — figured  as  an  attribute. 

"  For  us  all,"  said  the  President  of  the  Aubenas  Spinning 
Syndicate,  "you  have  been  the  kindly  magician  whose  inter- 
vention conjured  away  the  scourge  which  threatened  us ;  in 
you  we  hail  our  benefactor." 

Pasteur,  effacing  his  own  personality  as  he  had  done  at  the 
Academic,  laid  all  this  enthusiasm  and  gratitude  as  an  offering 
to  Science. 

"I  am  not  its  object,  but  rather  a  pretext  for  it,"  he  said, 
and  continued  :  "  Science  has  been  the  ruling  passion  of  my 
hfe.     I  have  lived  but  for  Science,  and  in  the  hours  of  difficulty 


352  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

which  are  inherent  to  protracted  efforts,  the  thought  of  France 
upheld  my  courage.  I  associated  her  greatness  with  the  great- 
ness of  Science. 

"  By  erecting  a  statue  to  Olivier  de  Serres,  the  illustrious 
son  of  the  Vivarais,  you  give  to  France  a  noble  example;  you 
show  to  all  that  you  venerate  great  men  and  the  great  things 
they  have  accomplished.  Therein  lies  fruitful  seed ;  you  have 
gathered  it,  may  your  sons  see  it  grow  and  fructify.  I  look 
back  upon  the  time,  already  distant,  when,  desirous  of  respond- 
ing to  the  suggestions  of  a  kind  and  illustrious  friend,  I  left 
Paris  to  study  in  a  neighbouring  Department  the  scourge  which 
was  decimating  your  magrianeries.  For  five  years  I  struggled 
to  obtain  some  knowledge  of  the  evil  and  the  means  of  pre- 
venting it;  and,  after  having  found  it,  I  still  had  to  struggle 
to  implant  in  other  minds  the  convictions  I  had  acquired. 

"  All  that  is  past  and  gone  now,  and  I  can  speak  of  it  with 
moderation.  I  am  not  often  credited  with  that  characteristic, 
and  yet  I  am  the  most  hesitating  of  men,  the  most  fearful  of 
responsibihty,  so  long  as  I  am  not  in  possession  of  a  proof. 
But  when  solid  scientific  proofs  confirm  my  convictions,  no 
consideration  can  prevent  me  from  defending  what  I  hold  to 
be  true. 

' '  A  man  whose  kindness  to  me  was  truly  paternal  (Biot) 
had  for  his  motto  :  Per  vias  rectas.  I  congratulate  myself  that 
I  borrowed  it  from  him.  If  I  had  been  more  timid  or  more 
doubtful  in  view  of  the  principles  I  had  established,  many 
points  of  science  and  of  application  might  have  remained 
obscure  and  subject  to  endless  discussion.  The  hypothesis  of 
spontaneous  generation  would  still  throw  its  veil  over  many 
questions.  Your  nurseries  of  silkworms  would  be  under  the 
sway  of  charlatanism,  with  no  guide  to  the  production  of  good 
seed.  The  vaccination  of  charbon,  destined  to  preserve  agri- 
culture from  immense  losses,  would  be  misunderstood  and 
rejected  as  a  dangerous  practice. 

"  Where  are  now  all  the  contradictions?  They  pass  away, 
and  Truth  remains.  After  an  interval  of  fifteen  years,  you 
now  render  it  a  noble  testimony.  I  therefore  feel  a  deep  joy 
in  seeing  my  efforts  understood  and  celebrated  in  an  impulse 
of  sympathy  which  will  remain  in  my  memory  and  in  that  of 
my  family  as  a  glorious  recollection." 

Pasteur  was  not  allowed  to  return  at  once  to  his  laboratory. 
The  agricultors  and  veterinary  surgeons  of  Nimes,  who  had 


1882—1884  353 

taken  an  interest  in  all  the  tests  on  the  vaccination  of  charbon, 
had,  in  their  turn,  drawn  up  a  programme  of  experiments. 

Pasteur  arrived  at  a  meeting  of  the  Agricultural  Society  of 
the  Gard  in  time  to  hear  the  report  of  the  veterinary  surgeons 
and    to    receive    the    congratulations    of    the    Society.     The 
President  expressed  to  him  the  gratitude  of  all  the   cattle- 
owners  and  breeders,  hitherto  powerless  to  arrest  the  progress 
of  the  disease  which  he  had  now  vanquished.     Whilst  a  com- 
memoration medal  was  being  offered  to  him  and  a  banquet 
being   prepared — for    Southern   enthusiasm   always   implies   a 
series  of  toasts — Pasteur  thanked  these  enterprising  men  who 
were  contemplating  new  experiments  in  order  to  dispel  the 
doubts    of    a    few    veterinary    surgeons,    and    especially    the 
characteristic  distrust,  felt  by  some  of  the  shepherds,  of  every- 
thing that  did  not  come  from  the  South.     Sheep,  oxen,  and 
horses,  some  of  them  vaccinated,  others  intact,  were  put  at 
Pasteur's  disposal ;  he,  with  his  usual  energy,  fixed  the  experi- 
ments for  the  next  morning  at  eight  o'clock.     After  inoculating 
all  the  animals  with  the  charbon  virus,  Pasteur  announced  that 
those  which  had  been  vaccinated  would  remain  unharmed,  but 
that  the  twelve  unvaccinated  sheep  would  be  dead  or  dying 
within  forty-eight  hours.     An  appointment  was  made  for  next 
day  but  one,  on  May  11,  at  the  town  knacker's,   near  the 
Bridge  of  Justice,  where  post-mortem  examinations  were  made. 
Pasteur  then  went  on  to  Montpellier,  where  he  was  expected 
by  the  Herault  Central  Society  of  Agriculture,  who  had  also 
made  some  experiments  and  had  asked  him  to  give  a  lecture 
at  the  Agricultural  School.     He  entered  the  large  hall,  feeling 
very  tired,  almost  ill,  but  his  face  lighted  up  at  the  sight  of 
that  assembly  of  professors  and  students  who  had  hurried  from 
all  the  neighbouring  Faculties,  and  those  agricultors  crowding 
from  every  part  of  the  Department,  all  of  them  either  full  of 
scientific  curiosity  or  moved  by   their  agricultural  interests. 
His  voice,  at  first  weak  and  showing  marks  of  weariness,  soon 
became  strengthened,   and,   forgetting  his  fatigue,  he  threw 
himself  into  the  subject  of  virulent  and  contagious  diseases. 
He  gave  himself  up,  heart  and  soul,  to  this  audience  for  two 
whole  hours,  inspiring  every  one  with  his  own  enthusiasm. 
He  stopped  now  and  then  to  invite  questions,  and  his  answers 
to  the  objectors  swept  away  the  last  shred  of  resistance. 

"  We  must  not,"  said  the  Vice-President  of  the  Agricultural 
Society,   M.    Vialla,    "encroach   further   on   the  time   of   M. 

A  A 


354  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Pasteur,  which  belongs  to  France  itself.  Perhaps,  however, 
he  will  allow  me  to  prefer  a  last  request  :  he  has  delivered  us 
from  the  terrible  scourge  of  splenic  fever ;  will  he  now  turn  to  a 
no  less  redoubtable  infection,  viz.  rot,  which  is,  so  to  speak, 
endemic  in  our  regions?  He  will  surely  find  the  remedy 
for  it." 

"I  have  hardly  finished  my  experiments  on  splenic  fever," 
answered  Pasteur  gently,  "  and  you  want  me  to  find  a  remedy 
for  rot !  Why  not  for  phylloxera  as  well  ?  ' '  And ,  while 
regretting  that  the  days  were  not  longer,  he  added,  with  the 
energy  of  which  he  had  just  given  a  new  proof  :  "  As  to  efforts, 
I  am  yours  usque  ad  mortem." 

He  afterwards  was  the  honoured  guest  at  the  banquet  pre- 
pared for  him.  It  was  now  not  only  Sericiculture ,  but  also 
Agriculture,  which  proclaimed  its  infinite  gratitude  to  him  ;  he 
was  given  an  enthusiastic  ovation,  in  which,  as  usual,  he  saw 
no  fame  for  himself,  but  for  work  and  science  only. 

On  May  11,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  was  again  at 
Nimes  to  meet  the  physicians,  veterinary  surgeons,  cattle- 
breeders,  and  shepherds  at  the  Bridge  of  Justice.  Of  the 
twelve  sheep,  six  were  already  dead,  the  others  dying;  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  their  symptoms  were  the  same  as  are  charac- 
teristic of  the  ordinary  splenic  fever.  "  M.  Pasteur  gave  all 
necessary  explanations  with  his  usual  modesty  and  clearness," 
said  the  local  papers. 

"  And  now  let  us  go  back  to  work  !  "  exclaimed  Pasteur,  as 
he  stepped  into  the  Paris  express ;  he  was  impatient  to  return 
to  his  laboratory. 

In  order  to  give  him  a  mark  of  public  gratitude  greater  still 
than  that  which  came  from  this  or  that  district,  the  Academic 
des  Sciences  resolved  to  organize  a  general  movement  of 
Scientific  Societies.  It  was  decided  to  present  him  with  a 
medal,  engraved  by  Alphee  Dubois,  and  bearing  on  one  side 
Pasteur's  profile  and  on  the  other  the  inscription  :  "  To  Louis 
Pasteur,  his  colleagues,  his  friends,  and  his  admirers." 

On  June  25,  a  Sunday,  a  delegation,  headed  by  Dumas,  and 
composed  of  Boussingault,  Bouley,  Jamin,  Daubree,  Bertin, 
Tisserand  and  Davaine  arrived  at  the  Ecole  Normale  and  found 
Pasteur  in  the  midst  of  his  family. 

"  My  dear  Pasteur,"  said  Dumas,  in  his  deep  voice,  "  forty 
years  ago,  you  entered  this  building  as  a  student.     From  the 


1882—1884  355 

very  first,  your  masters  foresaw  that  you  would  be  an  honour 
to  it,  but  no  one  would  have  dared  to  predict  the  startling 
services  which  you  were  destined  to  render  to  science,  France, 
and  the  world." 

And  after  summing  up  in  a  few  words  Pasteur's  great  career, 
the  sources  of  wealth  which  he  had  discovered  or  revived,  the 
benefits  he  had  acquired  to  medicine  and  surgery  :  "  My  dear 
Pasteur,"  continued  Dumas,  with  an  affectionate  emotion, 
"your  life  has  known  but  success.  The  scientific  method 
which  you  use  in  such  a  masterly  manner  owes  you  its  greatest 
triumphs.  The  Ecole  Normale  is  proud  to  number  you 
amongst  its  pupils  ;  the  Academic  des  Sciences  is  proud  of  your 
work ;  France  ranks  you  amongst  its  glories. 

' '  At  this  time ,  when  marks  of  public  gratitude  are  flowing 
towards  you  from  every  quarter,  the  homage  which  we  have 
come  to  offer  you,  in  the  name  of  your  admirers  and  friends, 
may  seem  worthy  of  your  particular  attention.  It  emanates 
from  a  spontaneous  and  universal  feeling,  and  it  will  preserve 
for  posterity  the  faithful  likeness  of  your  features. 

"  May  you,  my  dear  Pasteur,  long  live  to  enjoy  your  fame, 
and  to  contemplate  the  rich  and  abundant  fruit  of  your  work. 
Science,  agriculture,  industry,  and  humanity  will  preserve 
eternal  gratitude  towards  you,  and  your  name  will  live  in  their 
annals  amongst  the  most  illustrious  and  the  most  revered." 

Pasteur,  standing  with  bowed  head,  his  eyes  full  of  tears, 
was  for  a  few  moments  unable  to  reply,  and  then,  making 
a  violent  effort,  he  said  in  a  low  voice — 

"  My  dear  master — it  is  indeed  forty  years  since  I  first  had 
the  happiness  of  knowing  you,  and  since  you  first  taught  me 
to  love  science. 

"  I  was  fresh  from  the  country;  after  each  of  your  classes, 
I  used  to  leave  the  Sorbonne  transported,  often  moved  to  tears. 
From  that  moment,  your  talent  as  a  professor,  your  immortal 
labours  and  your  noble  character  have  inspired  me  with  an 
admiration  which  has  but  grown  with  the  maturity  of  my  mind. 

"You  have  surely  guessed  my  feelings,  my  dear  master. 
There  has  not  been  one  important  circumstance  in  my  life  or 
in  that  of  my  family,  either  happy  or  painful,  which  you  have 
not,  as  it  were,  blessed  by  your  presence  and  sympathy. 

"  Again  to-day,  you  take  the  foremost  rank  in  the  expres- 
sion of  that  testimony,  very  excessive,  I  think,  of  the  esteem 
of  niy  masters,  who  have  become  my  friends.     And  what  you 

A  A   2 


356  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

have  done  for  me ,  you  have  done  for  all  your  pupils ;  it  is  one 
of  the  distinctive  traits  of  your  nature.  Behind  the  individual, 
you  have  always  considered  France  and  her  greatness. 

"  What  shall  I  do  henceforth?  Until  now,  great  praise  had 
inflamed  my  ardour,  and  only  inspired  me  with  the  idea  of 
making  myself  worthy  of  it  by  renewed  efforts ;  but  that  which 
you  have  just  given  me  in  the  names  of  the  Academic  and  of 
the  Scientific  Societies  is  in  truth  beyond  my  courage." 

Pasteur,  who  for  a  year  had  been  applauded  by  the  crowd, 
received  on  that  June  25,  1882,  the  testimony  which  he  rated 
above  every  other  :  praise  from  his  master. 

Whilst  he  recalled  the  beneficent  influence  which  Dumas 
had  had  over  him,  those  who  were  sitting  in  his  drawing-room 
at  the  Ecole  Normale  were  thinking  that  Dumas  might  have 
evoked  similar  recollections  with  similar  charm.  He  too  had 
known  enthusiasms  which  had  illumined  his  youth.  In  1822, 
the  very  year  when  Pasteur  was  born,  Dumas,  who  was  then 
living  in  a  student's  attic  at  Geneva,  received  the  visit  of  a 
man  about  fifty,  dressed  Directoire  fashion,  in  a  light  blue  coat 
with  steel  buttons,  a  white  waistcoat  and  yellow  breeches.  It 
was  Alexander  von  Humboldt,  who  had  wished,  on  his  way 
through  Geneva,  to  see  the  young  man  who,  though  only 
twenty-two  years  old,  had  just  published,  in  collaboration  with 
Prevost,  treatises  on  blood  and  on  urea.  That  visit,  the  long 
conversations,  or  rather  the  monologues,  of  Humboldt  had 
inspired  Dumas  with  the  feelings  of  surprise,  pride,  gratitude 
and  devotion  with  which  the  first  meeting  with  a  great  man 
is  wont  to  fill  the  heart  of  an  enthusiastic  youth.  When  Dumas 
heard  Humboldt  speak  of  Laplace,  Berthollet,  Gay-Lussac, 
Arago,  Thenard,  Cuvier,  etc.,  and  describe  them  as  familiarly 
accessible,  instead  of  as  the  awe-inspiring  personages  he  had 
imagined,  Dumas  became  possessed  with  the  idea  of  going  to 
Paris,  knowing  those  men,  living  near  them  and  imbibing  their 
methods.  "  On  the  day  when  Humboldt  left  Geneva,"  Dumas 
used  to  say,  "the  town  for  me  became  empty."  It  was  thus 
that  Dumas'  journey  to  Paris  was  decided  on,  and  his  dazzling 
career  of  sixty  years  begun. 

He  was  now  near  the  end  of  his  scientific  career,  closing 
peacefully  like  a  beautiful  summer  evening,  and  he  was  happy 
in  the  fame  of  his  former  pupil.  As  he  left  the  Ecole  Normale, 
on  that  June  afternoon,  he  passed  under  the  windows  of  the 
laboratory,  where  a  few  young  men,  imbued  with  Pasteur's 


1882—1884  357 

doctrines,  represented   a   future  reserve   for   the   progress   of 
science. 

That  year  1882  was  the  more  interesting  in  Pasteur's  life, 
in  that  though  victory  on  many  points  was  quite  indisputable, 
partial  struggles  still  burst  out  here  and  there ,  and  an  adversary 
often  arose  suddenly  when  he  had  thought  the  engagement  over. 

The  sharpest  attacks  came  from  Germany.  The  Eecord  of 
the  Works  of  the  German  Sanitary  Office  had  led,  under  the 
direction  of  Dr.  Koch  and  his  pupils,  a  veritable  campaign 
against  Pasteur,  whom  they  declared  incapable  of  cultivating 
microbes  in  a  state  of  purity.  He  did  not  even,  they  said, 
know  how  to  recognize  the  septic  vibrio,  though  he  had  dis- 
covered it.  The  experiments  by  which  hens  contracted  splenic 
fever  under  a  lowered  temperature  after  inoculation  signified 
nothing.  The  share  of  the  earthworms  in  the  propagation  of 
charbon,  the  inoculation  into  guinea-pigs  of  the  germs  found 
in  the  little  cylinders  produced  by  those  worms  followed  by 
the  death  of  the  guinea-pigs ,  all  this  they  said  was  pointless  and 
laughable.  They  even  contested  the  preserving  influence  of 
vaccination. 

Whilst  these  things  were  being  said  and  written,  the  Veter- 
inary School  of  Berlin  asked  the  laboratory  of  the  Ecole 
Normale  for  some  charbon  vaccine.  Pasteur  answered  that 
he  wished  that  experiments  should  be  made  before  a  com- 
mission nominated  by  the  German  Government.  It  was  con- 
stituted by  the  Minister  of  Agriculture  and  Forests,  and 
Virchow  was  one  of  the  members  of  it.  A  former  student  of 
the  Ecole  Normale — who,  after  leaving  the  school  first  on 
the  list  of  competitors  for  the  agregation  of  physical  science, 
had  entered  the  laboratory — one  in  whom  Pasteur  founded 
many  hopes,  Thuillier,  left  for  Germany  with  his  little  tubes 
of  attenuated  virus.  Pasteur  was  not  satisfied ;  he  would  have 
liked  to  meet  his  adversaries  face  to  face  and  oblige  them 
publicly  to  own  their  defeat.  An  opportunity  was  soon  to  arise. 
He  had  come  to  Arbois,  as  usual,  for  the  months  of  August  and 
September,  and  was  having  some  alterations  made  in  his  little 
house.  The  tannery  pits  were  being  filled  up.  "It  will  not 
improve  the  house  itself,"  he  wrote  to  his  son,  "  but  it  will  be 
made  brighter  and  more  comfortable  by  having  a  tidy  yard  and 
a  garden  along  the  riverside." 

The  Committee  of  the  International  Congress  of  Hygiene^ 


358  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

which  was  to  meet  at  Geneva,  interrupted  these  peaceful 
holidays  by  inviting  Pasteur  to  read  a  paper  on  attenuated 
virus.  As  a  special  compliment,  the  whole  of  one  meeting, 
that  of  Tuesday,  September  5,  was  to  be  reserved  for  his 
paper  only.  Pasteur  immediately  returned  to  work ;  he  only 
consented  under  the  greatest  pressure  to  go  for  a  short  walk 
on  the  Besangon  road  at  five  a' clock  every  afternoon.  After 
spending  the  whole  morning  and  the  whole  afternoon  sitting  at 
his  writing  table  over  laboratory  registers,  he  came  away 
grumbling  at  being  disturbed  in  his  work.  If  any  member  of 
his  family  ventured  a  question  on  the  proposed  paper,  he  hastily 
cut  them  short,  declaring  that  he  must  be  let  alone.  It  was 
only  when  Mme.  Pasteur  had  copied  out  in  her  clear  hand- 
writing all  the  little  sheets  covered  with  footnotes,  that  the  con- 
tents of  the  paper  became  known. 

When  Pasteur  entered  the  Congress  Hall,  great  applause 
greeted  him  on  every  side.  The  seats  were  occupied,  not  only 
by  the  physicians  and  professors  who  form  the  usual  audience 
of  a  congress,  but  also  by  tourists,  who  take  an  interest  in 
scientific  things  when  they  happen  to  be  the  fashion. 

Pasteur  spoke  of  the  invitation  he  had  received.  "  I  hastened 
to  accept  it,"  he  said,  "and  I  am  pleased  to  find  myself  the 
guest  of  a  country  which  has  been  a  friend  to  France  in  good 
as  in  evil  days.  Moreover,  I  hoped  to  meet  here  some  of  the 
contradictors  of  my  work  of  the  last  few  years.  If  a  congress 
is  a  ground  for  conciliation,  it  is  in  the  same  degree  a  ground 
for  courteous  discussion.  We  all  are  actuated  by  a  supreme 
passion,  that  of  progress  and  of  truth." 

Almost  always ,  at  the  opening  of  a  congress ,  great  politeness 
reigns  in  a  confusion  of  languages.  Men  are  seen  offering  each 
other  pamphlets,  exchanging  visiting  cards,  and  only  lending 
an  inattentive  ear  to  the  solemn  speeches  going  on.  This 
time,  the  first  scene  of  the  first  act  suspended  all  private  con- 
versation. Pasteur  stood  above  the  assembly  in  his  full 
strength  and  glory.  Though  he  was  almost  sixty,  his  hair  had 
remained  black,  his  beard  alone  was  turning  grey.  His  face 
reflected  indomitable  energy ;  if  he  had  not  been  slightly  lame, 
and  if  his  left  hand  had  not  been  a  little  stiff,  no  one  could 
have  supposed  that  he  had  been  struck  with  paralysis  fourteen 
years  before.  The  feeling  of  the  place  France  should  hold  in 
an  International  Congress  gave  him  a  proud  look  and  an  impos- 
ing accent  of  authority.     He  was  visibly  ready  to  meet  his 


1882—1884  359 

adversaries  and  to  make  of  this  assembly  a  tribunal  of  judges. 
Except  for  a  few  diplomats  who  at  the  first  words  exchanged 
anxious  looks  at  the  idea  of  possible  polemics,  Frenchmen  felt 
happy  at  being  better  represented  than  any  other  nation.  Men 
eagerly  pointed  out  to  each  other  Dr.  Koch,  twenty-one  years 
younger  than  Pasteur,  who  sat  on  one  of  the  benches,  listening, 
with  impassive  eyes  behind  his  gold  spectacles. 

Pasteur  analysed  all  the  work  he  had  done  with  the  collabora- 
tion of  MM.  Chamberland,  Eoux,  and  Thuillier.  He  made 
clear  to  the  most  ignorant  among  his  hearers  his  ingenious 
experiments  either  to  obtain,  preserve  or  modify  the  virulence 
of  certain  microbes.  "  It  cannot  be  doubted,"  he  said,  "  that 
we  possess  a  general  method  of  attenuation.  .  .  .  The 
general  principles  are  found,  and  it  cannot  be  disbelieved  that 
the  future  of  those  researches  is  rich  with  the  greatest  hopes. 
But,  however  obvious  a  demonstrated  truth  may  be,  it  has  not 
always  the  privilege  of  being  easily  accepted.  I  have  met  in 
France  and  elsewhere  with  some  obstinate  contradictors. 
.  .  .  Allow  me  to  choose  amongst  them  the  one  whose  per- 
sonal merit  gives  him  the  greatest  claims  to  our  attention,  I 
mean  Dr  Koch,  of  Berlin." 

Pasteur  then  summed  up  the  various  criticisms  which  had 
appeared  in  the  Eecord  of  the  Works  of  the  German  Sanitary 
Office.  "Perhaps  there  may  be  some  persons  in  this 
assembly,"  he  went  on,  "who  share  the  opinions  of  my  con- 
tradictors. They  will  allow  me  to  invite  them  to  speak;  I 
should  be  happy  to  answer  them." 

Koch,  mounting  the  platform,  declined  to  discuss  the  subject, 
preferring,  he  said,  to  make  answer  in  writing  later  on.  Pasteur 
was  disappointed;  he  would  have  wished  the  Congress,  or  at 
least  a  Commission  designated  by  Koch,  to  decide  on  the 
experiments.  He  resigned  himself  to  wait.  On  the  following 
days,  as  the  members  of  the  Congress  saw  him  attending 
meetings  on  general  hygiene,  school  hygiene,  and  veterinary 
hygiene,  they  hardly  recognized  in  the  simple,  attentive  man, 
anxious  for  instruction,  the  man  who  had  defied  his  adversary. 
Outside  the  arena,  Pasteur  became  again  the  most  modest  of 
men,  never  allowing  himself  to  criticize  what  he  had  not 
thoroughly  studied.  But,  when  sure  of  his  facts,  he  showed 
himself  full  of  a  violent  passion,  the  passion  of  truth;  when 
truth  had  triumphed,  he  preserved  not  the  least  bitterness  of 
former  struggles. 


.%0  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

That  day  of  the  5th  September  was  remembered  in  Geneva. 
"  All  the  honom-  was  for  France,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  son; 
"  that  was  what  I  had  wished." 

He  was  already  keen  in  the  pursuit  of  another  malady  which 
caused  great  damage,  the  ''rouget"  disease  or  swine  fever. 
Thuillier,  ever  ready  to  start  when  a  demonstration  had  to  be 
made  or  an  experiment  to  be  attempted,  had  ascertained,  in 
March,  1882,  in  a  part  of  the  Department  of  the  Vienne,  the 
existence  of  a  microbe  in  the  swine  attacked  with  that  disease. 

In  order  to  know  whether  this  microbe  was  the  cause  of  the 
evil,  the  usual  operations  of  the  sovereign  method  had  to  be 
resorted  to.  First  of  all,  a  culture  medium  had  to  be  found 
which  was  suitable  to  the  micro-organism  (veal  broth  was  found 
to  be  very  successful) ;  then  a  drop  of  the  culture  had  to  be 
abstracted  from  the  little  phials  where  the  microbe  was  develop- 
ing and  sown  into  other  flasks ;  lastly  the  culture  liquid  had  to 
be  inoculated  into  swine.  Death  supervened  with  all  the 
symptoms  of  swine  fever ;  the  microbe  was  therefore  the  cause 
of  the  evil?  Could  it  be  attenuated  and  a  vaccine  obtained? 
Being  pressed  to  study  that  disease,  and  to  find  the  remedy  for 
it,  by  M.  Maucuer,  a  veterinary  surgeon  of  the  Department 
of  Vaucluse,  living  at  Bollene,  Pasteur  started,  accompanied 
by  his  nephew,  Adrien  Loir,  and  M.  Thuillier.  The  three 
arrived  at  Bollene  on  September  13. 

"It  is  impossible  to  imagine  more  obliging  kindness  than 
that  of  those  excellent  Maucuers,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  wife 
the  next  day.  "  Where,  in  what  dark  corner  they  sleep,  in 
order  to  give  us  two  bedrooms,  mine  and  another  with  two 
beds,  I  do  not  like  to  think.  They  are  young,  and  have  an 
eight-year-old  son  at  the  Avignon  College,  for  w^hom  they  have 
obtained  a  half -holiday  to-day  in  order  that  he  may  be  presented 
to  '  M.  Pasteur.'  The  two  men  and  I  are  taken  care  of  in  a 
manner  you  might  envy.  It  is  colder  here  and  more  rainy 
than  in  Paris.  I  have  a  fire  in  my  room,  that  green  oak-wood 
fire  that  you  will  remember  we  had  at  the  Pont  Gisquet. 

' '  I  was  much  pleased  to  hear  that  the  swine  fever  is  far  from 
being  extinguished.  There  are  sick  swine  everywhere,  some 
dying,  some  dead,  at  Bollene  and  in  the  country  around;  the 
evil  is  disastrous  this  year.  We  saw  some  dead  and  dying 
yesterday  afternoon.  We  have  brought  here  a  young  hog  who 
is  very  ill,  and  this  morning  we  shall  attempt  vaccination  at  a 


1882—1884  361 

M.  de  Ballincourt's,  who  has  lost  all  his  pigs,  and  who  has 
just  bought  some  more  in  the  hope  that  the  vaccine  will  be 
preservative.  From  morning  till  night  we  shall  be  able  to 
watch  the  disease  and  to  try  to  prevent  it.  This  reminds  me 
of  the  pebrine,  with  pigsties  and  sick  pigs  instead  of  nurseries 
full  of  dying  silkworms.  Not  ten  thousand,  but  at  least  twenty 
thousand  swine  have  perished,  and  I  am  told  it  is  worse  still  in 
the  Ardeche." 

On  the  17th,  the  day  was  taken  up  by  the  inoculation  of  some 
pigs  on  the  estate  of  M.  de  la  Gardette,  a  few  kilometres  from 
Bollene.  In  the  evening,  a  former  State  Councillor,  M.  de 
Gaillard,  came  at  the  head  of  a  delegation  to  compliment 
Pasteur  and  invite  him  to  a  banquet.  Pasteur  dechned  this 
honour,  saying  he  would  accept  it  when  the  swine  fever  was 
conquered.  They  spoke  to  him  of  his  past  services,  but  he 
had  no  thought  for  them  ;  like  all  progress-seeking  men,  he  saw 
but  what  was  before  him.  Experiments  were  being  carried  out 
—he  had  hastened  to  have  an  experimental  pigsty  erected  near 
M.  Maucuer's  house— and  already,  on  the  21st,  he  wrote  to 
Mme.  Pasteur,  in  one  of  those  letters  which  resembled  the  loose 
pages  of  a  laboratory  notebook — 

"Swine  fever  is  not  nearly  so  obscure  to  me  now,  and  I 
am  persuaded  that  with  the  help  of  time  the  scientific  and 
practical  problem  will  be  solved. 

"  Three  post-mortem  examinations  to-day.  They  take  a  long 
time,  but  that  seems  of  no  account  to  Thuillier,  with  his  cool 
and  patient  eagerness." 

Three  days  later  :  "  I  much  regret  not  being  able  to  tell  you 
yet  that  I  am  starting  back  for  Paris.  It  is  quite  impossible 
to  abandon  all  these  experiments  which  we  have  commenced ;  I 
should  have  to  return  here  at  least  once  or  twice.  The  chief 
thing  is  that  things  are  getting  clearer  with  every  experiment. 
You  know  that  nowadays  a  medical  knowledge  of  disease  is 
nothing  ;  it  must  be  prevented  beforehand.  We  are  attempting 
this,  and  I  think  I  can  foresee  success ;  but  keep  this  for  your- 
self and  our  children.     I  embrace  you  all  most  affectionately. 

"  P.S. — I  have  never  felt  better.  Send  me  1,000  fr.  ;  I  have 
but  300  fr.  left  of  the  1,600  fr.  I  brought.  Pigs  are  expensive, 
and  we  are  killing  a  great  many." 

At  last  on  December  3  :  "  I  am  sending  M.  Dumas  a  note 
for  to-morrow's  meeting  at  the  Academy.  If  I  had  time  I 
would  transcribe  it  for  the  laboratory  and  for  Kene." 


36S  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

"  Our  researches  " — thus  ran  the  report  to  the  Academy — 

may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  propositions — 

"I.  The  swine  fever,  or  rouget  disease,  is  produced  by  a 
special  microbe,  easy  to  cultivate  outside  the  animal's  body.  It 
is  so  tiny  that  it  often  escapes  the  most  attentive  search.  It 
resembles  the  microbe  of  chicken  cholera  more  than  any  other ; 
its  shape  is  also  that  of  a  figure  8,  but  finer  and  less  visible 
than  that  of  the  cholera.  It  differs  essentially  from  the  latter 
by  its  physiological  properties;  it  kills  rabbits  and  sheep,  but 
has  no  effect  on  hens. 

"II.  If  inoculated  in  a  state  of  purity  into  pigs,  in  almost 
inappreciable  doses,  it  speedily  brings  the  fever  and  death, 
with  all  the  characteristics  usual  in  spontaneous  cases.  It  is 
most  deadly  to  the  white,  so-called  improved,  race,  that  which 
is  most  sought  after  by  pork-breeders. 

"III.  Dr.  Klein  published  in  London  (1878)  an  extensive 
work  on  swine  fever  which  he  calls  Pneumo-enteritis  of  Swine  ; 
but  that  author  is  entirely  mistaken  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
parasite.  He  has  described  as  the  microbe  of  the  rouget  a 
bacillus  with  spores,  more  voluminous  even  than  the  bacteri- 
dium  of  splenic  fever.  Dr.  Klein's  microbe  is  very  different 
from  the  true  microbe  of  swine  fever,  and  has,  besides,  no 
relation  to  the  etiology  of  that  disease. 

"IV.  After  having  satisfied  ourselves  by  direct  tests  that 
the  malady  does  not  recur,  we  have  succeeded  in  inoculating  in 
in  a  benignant  form,  after  which  the  animal  has  proved  refrac- 
tory to  the  mortal  disease. 

"V.  Though  we  consider  that  further  control  experiments 
are  necessary,  we  have  already  great  confidence  in  this,  that, 
dating  from  next  spring,  vaccination  by  the  virulent  microbe  of 
swine  fever,  attenuated,  will  become  the  salvation  of  pigsties." 

Pasteur  ended  thus  his  letter  of  December  3  :  "  We  shall 
start  to-morrow,  Monday.  Adrien  Loir  and  I  shall  sleep  at 
Lyons.  Thuillier  will  go  straight  to  Paris,  to  take  care  of  ten 
little  pigs  which  we  have  bought,  and  which  he  will  take  with 
him.  In  this  way  they  will  not  be  kept  waiting  at  stations. 
Pigs,  young  and  old,  are  very  sensitive  to  cold;  they  will  be 
wrapped  up  in  straw.  They  are  very  young  and  quite  charm- 
ing ;  one  cannot  help  getting  fond  of  them." 

The  next  day  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  son  :  "Everything  has 
gone  off  well,  and  we  much  hope,  Thuillier  and  I,  that  pre- 
ventive vaccination  of  this  evil  can  be  established  in  a  practical 


1882—1884  363 

fashion.  It  would  be  a  great  boon  in  pork-breeding  countries, 
where  terrible  ravages  are  made  by  the  rouget  (so  called  because 
the  animals  die  covered  with  red  or  purple  blotches,  already 
developed  during  the  fever  which  precedes  death).  In  the 
United  States,  over  a  million  swine  died  of  this  disease  in  1879  ; 
it  rages  in  England  and  in  Germany.  This  year,  it  has 
desolated  the  C6tes-du-Nord,  the  Poitou,  and  the  departments 
of  the  Ehone  Valley.  I  sent  to  M.  Dumas  yesterday  a  resume 
in  a  few  lines  of  our  results,  to  be  read  at  to-day's  meeting." 

Pasteur,  once  more  in  Paris,  returned  eagerly  to  his  studies 
on  divers  virus  and  on  hydrophobia.  If  he  was  told  that  he 
over-worked  himself,  he  replied  :  "  It  would  seem  to  me  that  I 
was  committing  a  theft  if  I  were  to  let  one  day  go  by  without 
doing  some  work."  But  he  was  again  disturbed  in  the  work 
he  enjoyed  by  the  contradictions  of  his  opponents. 

Koch's  reply  arrived  soon  after  the  Bollene  episode.  The 
German  scientist  had  modified  his  views  to  a  certain  extent ; 
instead  of  denying  the  attenuation  of  virus  as  in  1881,  he  now 
proclaimed  it  as  a  discovery  of  the  first  order.  But  he  did  not 
believe  much ,  he  said ,  in  the  practical  results  of  the  vaccination 
of  charbon. 

Pasteur  put  forward,  in  response,  a  report  from  the  veterinary 
surgeon  Boutet  to  the  Chartres  Veterinary  and  Agricultural 
School,  made  in  the  preceding  October.  The  sheep  vaccinated 
in  Eure  et  Loir  during  the  last  year  formed  a  total  of  79,392. 
Instead  of  a  mortality  which  had  been  more  than  nine  per  cent, 
on  the  average  in  the  last  ten  years,  the  mortality  had  only 
been  518  sheep,  much  less  than  one  per  cent;  5,700  sheep  had 
therefore  been  preserved  by  vaccination.  Amongst  cattle  4,562 
animals  had  been  vaccinated ;  out  of  a  similar  number  300 
usually  died  every  year.  Since  vaccination,  only  eleven  cows 
had  died. 

"  Such  results  appear  to  us  convincing,"  wrote  M.  Boutet. 
"  If  our  cultivators  of  the  Beauce  understand  their  own  interest, 
splenic  fever  and  malignant  pustules  will  soon  remain  a  mere 
memory,  for  charbon  diseases  never  are  spontaneous,  and,  by 
preventing  the  death  of  their  cattle  by  vaccination,  they  will 
destroy  all  possibility  of  propagation  of  that  terrible  disease, 
which  will  in  consequence  entirely  disappear." 

Koch  continued  to  smile  at  the  discovery  on  the  earthworms' 
action  in  the  etiology  of  anthrax.  "  You  are  mistaken.  Sir," 
replied  Pasteur.     "  You   are    again   preparing   for  yourself   a 


364  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

vexing  change  of  opinion."  And  he  concluded  as  follows  : 
"  However  violent  your  attacks,  Sir,  they  will  not  hinder  the 
success  of  the  method  of  attenuated  virus.  I  am  confidently 
awaiting  the  consequences  which  it  holds  in  reserve  to  help 
humanity  in  its  struggle  against  the  diseases  which  assault  it." 

This  debate  was  hardly  concluded  when  new  polemics  arose 
at  the  Academie  de  Medecine.  A  new  treatment  of  typhoid 
fever  was  under  discussion. 

In  1870,  M.  Glenard,  a  Lyons  medical  student,  who  had 
enlisted,  was,  with  many  others,  taken  to  Stettin  as  prisoner 
of  war.  A  German  physician.  Dr.  Brand,  moved  with  com- 
passion by  the  sufferings  of  the  vanquished  French  soldiers, 
showed  them  great  kindness  and  devotion.  The  French 
student  attached  himself  to  him,  helped  him  wdth  his  work, 
and  saw  him  treat  typhoid  fever  with  success  by  baths  at  20°  C. 
Brand  prided  himself  on  this  cold-bath  treatment,  which  pro- 
duced numerous  cures.  M.  Glenard,  on  his  return  to  Lyons, 
remembering  with  confidence  this  method  of  which  he  had  seen 
the  excellent  results,  persuaded  the  physician  of  the  Croix 
Eousse  hospital,  where  he  resided,  to  attempt  the  same  treat- 
ment. This  was  done  for  ten  years,  and  nearly  all  the  Lyons 
practitioners  became  convinced  that  Brand's  method  was 
efficacious.  M.  Glenard  came  to  Paris  and  read  to  the 
Academy  of  Medicine  a  paper  on  the  cold-bath  treatment  of 
typhoid  fever.  The  Academy  appointed  a  commission,  com- 
posed of  civil  and  military  physicians,  and  the  discussion  was 
opened. 

The  oratorical  display  which  had  struck  Pasteur  when  he 
first  came  to  the  Academie  de  Medecine  was  much  to  the  fore 
on  that  occasion ;  the  merely  curious  hearers  of  that  discussion 
had  an  opportunity  of  enjoying  medical  eloquence,  besides 
acquiring  information  on  the  new  treatment  of  typhoid  fever. 
There  were  some  vehement  denunciations  of  the  microbe  which 
was  suspected  in  typhoid  fever.  ' '  You  aim  at  the  microbe  and 
you  bring  down  the  patient !  ' '  exclaimed  one  of  the  orators , 
who  added ,  amidst  great  applause ,  that  it  was  time  ' '  to  offer 
an  impassable  barrier  to  such  adventurous  boldness  and  thus 
to  preserve  patients  from  the  unforeseen  dangers  of  that 
therapeutic  whirlwind  !  ' ' 

Another  orator  took  up  a  lighter  tone  :  "I  do  not  much 
believe  in  that  invasion  of  parasites  which  threatens  us  like 
an  eleventh  plague  of  Egypt,"  said  M.  Peter.     And  attacking 


1882—1884  365 

the  scientists  who  meddled  with  medicine,  chymiasters  as  he 
called  them,  "They  have  come  to  this,"  he  said,  "that  in 
typhoid  fevers  they  only  see  the  typhoid  fever,  in  typhoid  fever, 
fever  only,  and  in  fever,  increased  heat.  They  have  thus 
reached  that  Imninous  idea  that  heat  must  be  fought  by  cold. 
This  organism  is  on  fire,  let  us  pour  water  over  it;  it  is  a 
fireman's  doctrine." 

Vulpian,  whose  grave  mind  was  not  unlike  Pasteur's,  inter- 
vened, and  said  that  new  attempts  should  not  be  discouraged 
by  sneers.  Without  pronouncing  on  the  merits  of  the  cold-bath 
method,  which  he  had  not  tried,  he  looked  beyond  this  dis- 
cussion, indicating  the  road  which  theoretically  seemed  to  him 
to  lead  to  a  curative  treatment.  The  first  thing  was  to  discover 
the  agent  which  causes  typhoid  fever,  and  then,  when  that 
was  known,  attempt  to  destroy  or  paralyse  it  in  the  tissues  of 
typhoid  patients,  or  else  to  find  drugs  capable  either  of  pre- 
venting the  aggressions  of  that  agent  or  of  annihilating  the 
effects  of  that  aggression ,  "to  produce ,  relatively  to  typhoid 
fever,  the  effect  determined  by  salicylate  of  soda  in  acute  rheu- 
matism of  the  articulations." 

Beyond  the  restricted  audience,  allowed  a  few  seats  in  tSe 
Academic  de  Medecine,  the  general  public  itself  was  taking  an 
interest  in  this  prolonged  debate.  The  very  high  death  rate 
in  the  army  due  to  typhoid  fever  was  the  cause  of  this  eager 
attention.  Whilst  the  German  army,  where  Brand's  method 
was  employed,  hardly  lost  five  men  out  of  a  thousand,  the 
French  army  lost  more  than  ten  per  thousand. 

Whilst  military  service  was  not  compulsory,  epidemics  in 
barracks  were  looked  upon  with  more  or  less  compassionate 
attention.  But  the  thought  that  typhoid  fever  had  been  more 
destructive  within  the  last  ten  years  than  the  most  sanguinary 
battle  now  awakened  all  minds  and  hearts.  Is  then  personal 
fear  necessary  to  awaken  human  compassion? 

Bouley,  who  was  more  given  to  propagating  new  doctrines 
than  to  lingering  on  such  philosophical  problems,  thought  it 
was  time  to  introduce  into  the  debate  certain  ideas  on  the  great 
problems  tackled  by  medicine  since  the  discovery  of  what 
might  be  called  a  fourth  kingdom  in  nature,  that  of  microbia. 
In  a  statement  read  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine,  he  formu- 
lated in  broad  lines  the  role  of  the  infinitesimally  small  and 
their  activity  in  producing  the  phenomena  of  fermentations  and 
diseases.     He  showed  by  the  parallel  works  of  Pasteur  on  the 


366  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

one  hand,  and  M.  Chauveau  on  the  other,  that  contagion  is  the 
function  of  a  living  element.  "  It  is  especially,"  said  Bouley, 
' '  on  the  question  of  the  prophylaxis  of  virulent  diseases  that 
the  microbian  doctrine  has  given  the  most  marvellous  results. 
To  seize  upon  the  most  deadly  virus,  to  submit  them  to  a 
methodical  culture ,  to  cause  modifying  agents  to  act  upon  them 
in  a  measured  proportion,  and  thus  to  succeed  in  attenuating 
them  in  divers  degrees,  so  as  to  utilize  their  strength,  reduced 
but  still  ef&cacious,  in  transmitting  a  benignant  malady  by 
means  of  v^hich  immunity  is  acquired  against  the  deadly 
disease  :  what  a  beautiful  dream  !  !  And  M.  Pasteur  has  made 
that  dream  into  a  reality  !  !  !   .   .   . " 

The  debate  widened,  typhoid  fever  became  a  mere  incident. 
The  pathogenic  action  of  the  infinitesimally  small  entered  into 
the  discussion  ;  traditional  medicine  faced  microbian  medicine. 
M.  Peter  rushed  once  more  to  the  front  rank  for  the  fight.  He 
declared  that  he  did  not  apply  the  term  chymiaster  to  Pasteur  ; 
he  recognized  that  it  was  but  "fair  to  proclaim  that  we  owe 
to  M.  Pasteur's  researches  the  most  useful  practical  applica- 
tions in  surgery  and  in  obstetrics."  But  considering  that 
medicine  might  claim  more  independence,  he  repeated  that 
the  discovery  of  the  material  elements  of  virulent  diseases  did 
not  throw  so  much  light  as  had  been  said,  either  on  pathological 
anatomy,  on  the  evolution,  on  the  treatment  or  especially  on 
the  prophylaxis  of  virulent  diseases.  "  Those  are  but  natural 
history  curiosities,"  he  added,  "interesting  no  doubt,  but  of 
very  little  profit  to  medicine,  and  not  worth  either  the  time 
given  to  them  or  the  noise  made  about  them.  After  so  many 
laborious  researches,  nothing  will  be  changed  in  medicine, 
there  will  only  be  a  few  more  microbes." 

A  newspaper  having  repeated  this  last  sentence,  a  professor 
of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine,  M.  Cornil,  simply  recalled  how, 
at  the  time  when  the  acarus  of  itch  had  been  discovered,  many 
partisans  of  old  doctrines  had  probably  exclaimed,  "What  is 
your  acarus  to  me?  Will  it  teach  me  more  than  I  know 
already?  "  "  But,"  added  M.  Cornil,  "  the  physician  who  had 
understood  the  value  of  that  discovery  no  longer  inflicted 
internal  medication  upon  his  patients  to  cure  them  of  what 
seemed  an  inveterate  disease,  but  merely  cured  them  by  means 
of  a  brush  and  a  little  ointment." 

M.  Peter,  continuing  his  violent  speech,  quoted  certain  vac- 
cination failures,  and  incompletely  reported  experiments,  say- 


1882—1884  367 

ing,  grandly  :  "  M.  Pasteur's  excuse  is  that  he  is  a  chemist, 
who  has  tried,  out  of  a  wish  to  be  useful,  to  reform  medicine, 
to  which  he  is  a  complete  stranger.   .   .   . 

"In  the  struggle  I  have  undertaken  the  present  discussion 
is  but  a  skirmish  ;  but ,  to  judge  from  the  reinforcements  which 
are  coming  to  me,  the  melee  may  become  general,  and  victory 
will  remain,  I  hope,  to  the  larger  battalions,  that  is  to  say,  to 
the  'old  medicine.'  " 

Bouley,  amazed  that  M.  Peter  should  thus  scout  the  notion 
of  microbia  introduced  into  pathology,  valiantly  fought  this 
"  skirmish  "  alone.  He  recalled  the  discussions  a  propos  of 
tuberculosis,  so  obscure  until  a  new  and  vivifying  notion  came 
to  simplify  the  solution  of  the  problem.  "  And  you  reject  that 
solution  !  You  say ,  '  What  does  it  matter  to  me  ?  '  .  .  .  What ! 
M.  Koch,  of  Berlin — who  with  such  discoveries  as  he  has  made 
might  well  abstain  from  envy — M.  Koch  points  out  to  you  the 
presence  of  bacteria  in  tubercles,  and  that  seems  to  you  of  no 
importance?  But  that  microbe  gives  you  the  explanation  of 
those  contagious  properties  of  tuberculosis  so  well  demonstrated 
by  M.  Villemin,  for  it  is  the  instrument  of  virulence  itself  which 
is  put  under  your  eyeys." 

Bouley  then  went  on  to  refute  the  arguments  of  M.  Peter, 
epitomized  the  history  of  the  discovery  of  the  attenuation  of 
virus,  and  all  that  this  method  of  cultures  possible  in  an  extra- 
organic  medium  might  suggest  that  was  hopeful  for  a  vaccine  of 
cholera  and  of  yellow  fever,  which  might  be  discovered  one  day 
and  protect  humanity  against  those  terrible  scourges.  He  con- 
cluded thus — "Let  M.  Peter  do  what  I  have  done;  let  him 
study  M.  Pasteur,  and  penetrate  thoroughly  into  all  that  is 
admirable,  through  the  absolute  certainty  of  the  results,  in 
the  long  series  of  researches  which  have  led  him  from  the 
discovery  of  ferments  to  that  of  the  nature  of  virus ;  and 
then  I  can  assure  him  that  instead  of  decrying  this  great 
glory  of  Prance,  of  whom  we  must  all  be  proud,  he  too 
will  feel  himself  carried  away  by  enthusiasm  and  will 
bow  with  admiration  and  respect  before  the  chemist,  who, 
though  not  a  physician,  illumines  medicine  and  dispels,  in 
ihe  light  of  his  experiments,  a  darkness  which  had  hitherto 
remained  impenetrable . ' ' 

A  year  before  this  (Peter  had  not  failed  to  report  the  fact) 
an  experiment  of  anthrax  vaccination  had  completely  failed  at 
the  Turin  Veterinary  School.     All  the  sheep,  vaccinated  and 


368  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

non-vaccinated,  had  succumbed  subsequently  to  the  inoculation 
of  the  blood  of  a  sheep  which  had  died  of  charbon. 

This  took  place  in  March,  1882.  As  soon  as  Pasteur  heard 
of  this  extraordinary  fiasco,  which  seemed  the  counterpart  of 
the  Pouilly-le-Fort  experiment,  he  wrote  on  April  16  to  the 
director  of  the  Turin  Veterinary  School,  asking  on  what  day 
the  sheep  had  died  the  blood  of  which  had  been  used  for  the 
virulent  inoculation. 

The  director  answered  simply  that  the  sheep  had  died  on  the 
morning  of  March  22,  and  that  its  blood  had  been  inoculated 
during  the  course  of  the  following  day.  "There  has  been," 
said  Pasteur,  "a  grave  scientific  mistake;  the  blood  inoculated 
was  septic  as  well  as  full  of  charbon." 

Though  the  director  of  the  Turin  Veterinary  School  affirmed 
that  the  blood  had  been  carefully  examined  and  that  it  was  in 
no  wise  septic,  Pasteur  looked  back  on  his  1877  experiments 
on  anthrax  and  septicaemia,  and  maintained  before  the  Paris 
Central  Veterinary  Society  on  June  8,  1882,  that  the  Turin 
School  had  done  wrong  in  using  the  blood  of  an  animal  at  least 
twenty-four  hours  after  its  death,  for  the  blood  must  have  been 
septic  besides  containing  anthrax.  The  six  professors  of  the 
Turin  School  protested  unanimously  against  such  an  interpre- 
tation. "  We  hold  it  marvellous,"  they  wrote  ironically,  "  that 
your  Illustrious  Lordship  should  have  recognized  so  surely, 
from  Paris,  the  disease  which  made  such  havoc  amongst  the 
animals  vaccinated  and  non-vaccinated  and  inoculated  with 
blood  containing  anthrax  in  our  school  on  March  23,  1882. 

"  It  does  not  seem  to  us  possible  thaf  a  scientist  should 
affirm  the  existence  of  septicaemia  in  an  animal  he  has  not  even 
seen.   ..." 

The  quarrel  with  the  Turin  School  had  now  lasted  a  year. 
On  April  9,  1883,  Pasteur  appealed  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences 
to  judge  of  the  Turin  incident  and  to  put  an  end  to  this  agita- 
tion, which  threatened  to  cover  truth  with  a  veil.  He  read  out 
the  letter  he  had  just  addressed  to  the  Turin  professors. 

"  Grentlemen,  a  dispute  having  arisen  between  you  and 
myself  respecting  the  interpretation  to  be  given  to  the  absolute 
failure  of  your  control  experiment  of  March  23,  1882,  I  have 
the  honour  to  inform  you  that,  if  you  will  accept  the  suggestion, 
I  will  go  to  Turin  any  day  you  may  choose  ;  you  shall  inoculate 
in  my  presence  some  virulent  charbon  into  any  number  of 
sheep  you  like.     The  exact  moment  of  death  in  each  case  shall 


1882—1884  369 

be  determined,  and  I  will  demonstrate  to  you  that  in  every 
case  the  blood  of  the  corpse  containing  only  charbon  at  the  first 
will  also  be  septic  on  the  next  day.  It  will  thus  be  established 
with  absolute  certainty  that  the  assertion  formulated  by  me  on 
June  8,  1882,  against  which  you  have  protested  on  two  occa- 
sions, arises,  not  as  you  say,  from  an  arbitrary  opinion,  but 
from  an  immovable  scientific  principle;  and  that  I  have 
legitimately  affirmed  from  Paris  the  presence  of  septicaemia 
without  it  being  in  the  least  necessary  that  I  should  have  seen 
the  corpse  of  the  sheep  you  utiUzed  for  your  experiments. 

"  Minutes  of  the  facts  as  they  are  produced  shall  be  drawn 
up  day  by  day,  and  signed  by  the  professors  of  the  Turin 
Veterinary  School  and  by.  the  other  persons,  physicians  or 
veterinary  surgeons,  who  may  have  been  present  at  the  experi- 
ments;  these  minutes  will  then  be  published  both  at  the 
Academies   of   Turin   and  of  Paris." 

Pasteur  contented  himself  with  reading  this  letter  to  the 
Academy  of  Sciences.  For  months  he  had  not  attended  the 
Academy  of  Medicine ;  he  was  tired  of  incessant  and  barren 
struggles ;  he  often  used  to  come  away  from  the  discussions 
worn  out  and  excited.  He  would  say  to  Messrs.  Chamberland 
and  Eoux,  who  waited  for  him  after  the  meetings,  "  How  is  it 
that  certain  doctors  do  not  understand  the  range,  the  value,  of 
our  experiments  ?  How  is  it  that  they  do  not  foresee  the  great 
future  of  all  these  studies?  " 

The  day  after  the  x\cademie  des  Sciences  meeting,  judging 
that  his  letter  to  Turin  sufficiently  closed  the  incident,  Pasteur 
started  for  Arbois.  He  wanted  to  set  up  a  laboratory  adjoining 
his  house.  Where  the  father  had  worked  with  his  hands,  the 
son  would  work  at  his  great  light-emitting  studies. 

On  April  3  a  letter  from  M.  Peter  had  been  read  at  the 
Academy  of  Medicine,  declaring  that  he  did  not  give  up  the 
struggle  and  that  nothing  would  be  lost  by  waiting. 

At  the  following  sitting,  another  physician,  M.  Fauvel,  while 
declaring  himself  an  admirer  of  Pasteur's  work  and  full  of 
respect  for  his  person,  thought  it  well  not  to  accept  blindly 
all  the  inductions  into  which  Pasteur  might  find  himself  drawn, 
and  to  oppose  those  which  were  contradictory  to  acquired  facts. 
After  M.  Fauvel,  M.  Peter  violently  attacked  what  he  called 
"microbicidal  drugs  which  may  become  homicidal,"  he  said. 
When  reading  the  account  of  this  meeting,  Pasteur  had  an 
impulse  of    anger.     His    resolutions    not    to    return    to    the 

B  B 


370  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Academy  of  Medicine  gave  way  before  the  desire  not  to  leave 
Bouley  alone  to  lead  the  defensive  campaign ;  he  started  for 
Paris. 

As  his  family  was  then  at  Arbois,  and  the  doors  of  his  flat 
at  the  Ecole  Normale  closed,  the  simplest  thing  for  Pasteur 
was  to  go  to  the  Hotel  du  Louvre,  accompanied  by  a  member 
of  his  family.  The  next  morning  he  carefully  prepared  his 
speech,  and,  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  entered  the 
Academy  of  Medicine.  The  President,  M.  Hardy,  welcomed 
him  in  these  words — "  Allow  me,  before  you  begin  to  speak, 
to  tell  you  that  it  is  with  great  pleasure  that  we  see  you  once 
again  among  us,  and  that  the  Academy  hopes  that,  now  that 
you  have  once  more  found  your  way  to  its  precincts,  you  will 
not  forget  it  again." 

After  isolating  and  rectifying  the  points  of  discussion, 
Pasteur  advised  M.  Peter  to  make  a  more  searching  inquiry 
into  the  subject  of  anthrax  vaccination,  and  to  trust  to  Time, 
the  only  sovereign  judge.  Should  not  the  recollection  of  the 
violent  hostility  encountered  at  first  by  Jenner  put  people  on 
their  guard  against  hasty  judgments?  There  was  not  one  of 
the  doctors  present  who  could  not  remember  what  had  been 
written  at  one  time  against  vaccination  !  !  ! 

He  went  on  to  oppose  the  false  idea  that  each  science  should 
restrict  itself  within  its  own  limitations.  "  What  do  I,  a  phy- 
sician, says  M.  Peter,  want  with  the  minds  of  the  chemist, 
the  physicist  and  the  physiologist? 

On  hearing  him  speak  with  so  much  disdain  of  the  chemists 
and  physiologists  who  touch  upon  questions  of  disease,  you 
might  verily  think  that  he  is  speaking  in  the  name  of  a  science 
whose  principles  are  founded  on  a  rock  !  Does  he  want  proofs 
of  the  slow  progress  of  therapeutics?  It  is  now  six  months 
since,  in  this  assembly  of  the  greatest  medical  men,  the 
question  was  discussed  whether  it  is  better  to  treat  typhoid 
fever  with  cold  lotions  or  with  quinine ,  with  alcohol  or  salicylic 
acid,  or  even  not  to  treat  it  at  all. 

"  And,  when  we  are  perhaps  on  the  eve  of  solving  the  ques- 
tion of  the  etiology  of  that  disease  by  a  microbe,  M.  Peter 
commits  the  medical  blasphemy  of  saying,  '  What  do  your 
microbes  matter  to  me?  It  will  only  be  one  microbe  the 
more  !  '  " 

Amazed  that  sarcasm  should  be  levelled  against  new  studies 
which  opened  such  wide  horizons,  he  denounced  the  flippancy 


1882—1884  371 

with  which  a  professor  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  allowed  him- 
self to  speak  of  vaccinations  by  attenuated  virus. 

He  ended  by  rejoicing  once  more  that  this  great  discovery 
should  have  been  a  French  one. 

Pasteur  went  back  to  Arbois  for  a  few  days.  On  his  return 
to  Paris,  he  was  beginning  some  new  experiments,  when  he 
received  a  long  letter  from  the  Turin  professors.  Instead  of 
accepting  his  offer,  they  enumerated  their  experiments,  asked 
some  questions  in  an  offended  and  ironical  manner,  and  con- 
cluded by  praising  an  Italian  national  vaccine,  which  produced 
absolute  immunity  in  the  future — when  it  did  not  kill. 

"They  cannot  get  out  of  this  dilemma,"  said  Pasteur; 
"  either  they  knew  my  1877  notes,  unravelling  the  contra- 
dictory statements  of  Davaine,  Jaillard  and  Leplat,  and  Paul 
Bert,  or  they  did  not  know  them.  If  they  did  not  know  them 
on  March  22 ,  1882 ,  there  is  nothing  more  to  say ;  they  were 
not  guilty  in  acting  as  they  did ,  but  they  should  have  owned  it 
freely.  If  they  did  know  them,  why  ever  did  they  inoculate 
blood  taken  from  a  sheep  twenty -four  hours  after  its  death? 
They  say  that  this  blood  was  not  septic  ;  but  how  do  they  know? 
They  have  done  nothing  to  find  out.  They  should  have  inocu- 
lated some  guinea-pigs,  by  choice,  and  then  tried  some  cultures 
in  a  vacuum  to  compare  them  with  cultures  in  contact  with 
air.  Why  will  they  not  receive  me?  A  meeting  between 
truth-seeking  men  would  be  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world!  " 

Still  hoping  to  persuade  his  adversaries  to  meet  him  at  Turin 
and  be  convinced,  Pasteur  wrote  to  them.  "Paris,  May  9, 
1883.  Gentlemen — Your  letter  of  April  30  surprises  me  very 
much.  What  is  in  question  between  you  and  me?  That  I 
should  go  to  Turin,  if  you  will  allow  me,  to  demonstrate  that 
sheep,  dead  of  charbon,  as  numerous  as  you  like,  will,  for  a 
few  hours  after  their  death,  be  exclusively  infected  with 
anthrax,  and  that  the  day  after  their  death  they  will  present 
both  anthrax  and  septic  infection  ;  and  that  therefore,  when,  on 
March  23,  1882,  wishing  to  inoculate  blood  infected  with 
anthrax  only  into  sheep  vaccinated  and  non-vaccinated,  you 
took  blood  from  a  carcase  twenty-four  hours  after  death,  you 
committed  a  grave  scientific  mistake. 

"Instead  of  answering  yes  or  no,  instead  of  saying  to  me 
'  Come  to  Turin,'  or  '  Do  not  come,'  you  ask  me,  in  a  manii« 

B  B  2 


372  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

script  letter  of  seventeen  pages,  to  send  you  from  Paris,  in  writ- 
ing, preliminary  explanations  of  all  that  I  should  have  to 
demonstrate  in  Turin. 

"  Keally,  what  is  the  good?  Would  not  that  lead  to 
endless  discussions?  It  is  because  of  the  uselessness  of 
a  written  controversy  that  I  have  placed  myself  at  your 
disposal. 

' '  I  have  once  more  the  honour  of  asking  you  to  inform  me 
whether  you  accept  the  proposal  made  to  you  on  April  9 ,  that  I 
should  go  to  Turin  to  place  before  your  eyes  the  proofs  of  the 
facts  I  have  just  mentioned. 

"  P.S. — In  order  not  to  complicate  the  debate,  I  do  not  dwell 
upon  the  many  erroneous  quotations  and  statements  contained 
in  your  letter." 

M.  E.OUX  began  to  prepare  an  interesting  curriculum  of 
experiments  to  be  carried  out  at  Turin.  But  the  Turin  pro- 
fessors wrote  a  disagreeable  letter,  published  a  little  pamphlet 
entitled  Of  the  Scientific  Dogmatism  of  the  Illustrious 
Professor  Pasteur,  and  things  remained  as  they  were. 

All  these  discussions,  renewed  on  so  many  divers  points,  were 
not  altogether  a  waste  of  time ;  some  of  them  bore  fruitful 
results  by  causing  most  decisive  proofs  to  be  sought  for.  It 
has  also  made  the  path  of  Pasteur's  followers  wider  and 
smoother  that  he  himself  should  have  borne  the  brunt  of  the 
first  opposition. 

In  the  meanwhile,  testimonials  of  gratitude  continued  to 
pour  in  from  the  agricultors  and  veterinary  surgeons  who  had 
seen  the  results  of  two  years'  practice  of  the  vaccination  against 
anthrax. 

In  the  year  1882,  613,740  sheep  and  83,946  oxen  had  been 
vaccinated.  The  Department  of  the  Cantal  which  had  before 
lost  about  3,000,000  fr.  every  year,  desired  in  June,  1883,  on 
the  occasion  of  an  agricultural  show,  to  give  M.  Pasteur  a 
special  acknowledgement  of  their  gratitude.  It  consisted  of 
a  cup  of  silver-plated  bronze,  ornamented  with  a  group  of 
cattle.  Behind  the  group — imitating  in  this  the  town  of 
Aubenas,  who  had  made  a  microscope  figure  as  an  attribute  of 
honour — was  represented,  in  small  proportions,  an  instrument 
which  found  itself  for  the  first  time  raised  to  such  an  exalted 
position,  the  little  syringe  used  for  inoculations. 

Pasteur  was  much  pressed  to  come  himself  and  receive  this 
offering  from  a  land  whicl^  would  henceforth  owe  its  fortune  to 


1882—1884  373 

him.  He  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded,  and  arrived,  accom- 
panied as  usual  by  his  family. 

The  Mayor,  surrounded  by  the  municipal  councillors,  greeted 
him  in  these  words  :  "  Our  town  of  Aurillac  is  very  small,  and 
you  will  not  find  here  the  brilliant  population  which  inhabits 
great  cities;  but  you  will  find  minds  capable  of  understand- 
ing the  scientific  and  humanitarian  mission  which  you  have  so 
generously  undertaken.  You  will  also  find  hearts  capable  of 
appreciating  your  benefits  and  of  preserving  the  memory  of 
them ;  your  name  has  been  on  all  our  lips  for  a  long  time." 

Pasteur,  visiting  that  local  exhibition,  did  not  resemble  the 
official  personages  who  listen  wearily  to  the  details  given  them 
by  a  staff  of  functionaries.  He  thought  but  of  acquiring  know- 
ledge, going  straight  to  this  or  that  exhibitor  and  questioning 
him,  not  with  perfunctory  politeness,  but  with  a  real  desire 
for  practical  information  ;  no  detail  seemed  to  him  insignificant. 
"  Nothing  should  be  neglected,"  he  said ;  "and  a  remark  from 
a  rough  labourer  who  does  well  what  he  has  to  do  is  infinitely 
precious." 

After  visiting  the  products  and  agricultural  implements, 
Pasteur  was  met  in  the  street  by  a  peasant  who  stopped  and 
waved  his  large  hat,  shouting,  "Long  live  Pasteur!"  .  .  . 
"  You  have  saved  my  cattle,"  continued  the  man,  coming  up 
to  shake  hands  with  him. 

Physicians  in  their  turn  desired  to  celebrate  and  to  honour  him 
who,  though  not  a  physician,  had  rendered  such  service  to 
medicine.  Thirty-two  of  them  assembled  to  drink  his  health. 
The  head  physician  of  the  Aurillac  Hospital,  Dr.  Fleys,  said  in 
proposing  the  toast  :  ' '  What  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens 
owes  to  Newton,  chemistry  to  Lavoisier,  geology  to  Cuvier, 
general  anatomy  to  Bichat,  physiology  to  Claude  Bernard, 
pathology  and  hygiene  will  owe  to  Pasteur.  Unite  with  me, 
dear  colleagues,  and  let  us  drink  to  the  fame  of  the  illustrious 
Pasteur,  the  precursor  of  the  medicine  of  the  future,  a  bene- 
factor to  humanity." 

This  glorious  title  was  now  associated  with  his  name.  In  the 
first  rank  of  his  enthusiastic  admirers  came  the  scientists,  who, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  pure  science,  admired  the  achieve- 
ments, within  those  thirty-five  years,  of  that  great  man  whose 
perseverance  equalled  his  penetration.  Then  came  the  manu- 
facturers, the  sericicultors,  and  the  agricultors,  who  owed  their 


374  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

fortune  to  him  who  had  placed  every  process  he  discovered 
into  the  pubhc  domain.  Finally,  France  could  quote  the  words 
of  the  English  physiologist,  Huxley,  in  a  public  lecture  at  the 
London  Eoyal  Society  :  "  Pasteur's  discoveries  alone  would 
suffice  to  cover  the  war  indemnity  of  five  milliards  paid  by 
France  to  Germany  in  1870." 

To  that  capital  was  added  the  inestimable  price  of  human 
lives  saved.  Since  the  antiseptic  method  had  been  adopted 
in  surgical  operations ,  tlie  mortality  had  fallen  from  50  per  100 
to  5  per  100. 

In  the  lying-in  hospitals,  more  than  decimated  formerly  (for 
the  statistics  had  shown  a  death-rate  of  not  only  100  but  200 
per  1,000),  the  number  of  fatalities  was  now  reduced  to  3  per 
1,000  and  soon  afterwards  fell  to  1  per  1,000.  And,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  principles  established  by  Pasteur,  hygiene  was 
growing,  developing,  and  at  last  taking  its  proper  place  in  the 
public  view.  So  much  progress  accomplished  had  brought 
Pasteur  a  daily  growing  acknowledgment  of  gratitude,  his 
country  was  more  than  proud  of  him.  His  powerful  mind, 
allied  with  his  very  tender  heart,  had  brought  to  French  glory 
an  aureole  of  charity. 

The  Government  of  the  Republic  remembered  that  England 
had  voted  two  national  rewards  to  Jenner,  one  in  1802  and  one 
in  1807,  the  first  of  £10,000,  and  the  second  of  £20,000.  It 
was  at  the  time  of  that  deliberation  that  Pitt,  the  great  orator, 
exclaimed,  "Vote,  gentlemen,  your  gratitude  will  never  reach 
the  amount  of  the  service  rendered." 

The  French  Ministry  proposed  to  augment  the  12,000  fr.  pen- 
sion accorded  to  Pasteur  in  1874  as  a  national  recompense,  and 
to  make  it  25,000  fr.,  to  revert  first  to  Pasteur's  widow,  and 
then  to  his  children .  A  Commission  was  formed  and  Paul  Bert 
again  chosen  to  draw  up  the  report. 

On  several  occasions  at  the  meetings  of  the  commission  one 
of  its  members,  Benjamin  Raspail,  exalted  the  parasitic  theory 
propounded  in  1843  by  his  own  father.  His  filial  pleading 
went  so  far  as  to  accuse  Pasteur  of  plagiarism.  Paul  Bert, 
whilst  recognizing  the  share  attributed,  by  F,  V.  Easpail  to 
microscopic  beings,  recalled  the  fact  that  his  attempt  in  favour 
of  epidemic  and  contagious  diseases  had  not  been  adopted  by 
scientists.  "No  doubt,"  he  said,  "  the  parasitic  origin  of  the 
itch  was  now  definitely  accepted,  thanks  in  a  great  measure 
to  the  efforts  of  Raspail ;  but  generalizations  were  considered 


1882—1884  375 

as  out  of  proportion  to  the  fact  they  were  supposed  to  rest  on. 
It  seemed  excessive  to  conclude  from  the  existence  of  the  acarus 
of  itch,  visible  to  the  naked  eye  or  with  the  weakest  magnifying 
glass,  the  presence  of  microscopic  parasites  in  the  humours 
of  virulent  diseases.  .  .  .  Such  hypotheses  can  be  considered 
but  as  a  sort  of  intuition.'^ 

"Hypotheses,"  said  Pasteur,  "  come  into  our  laboratories 
in  armfuls;  they  fill  our  registers  with  projected  experiments, 
they  stimulate  us  to  research — and  that  is  all."  One  thing 
only  counted  for  him  :  experimental  verification. 

Paul  Bert,  in  his  very  complete  report,  quoted  Huxley's 
words  to  the  Eoyal  Society  and  Pitt's  words  to  the  House  of 
Commons.  He  stated  that  since  the  first  Bill  had  been  voted, 
a  new  series  of  discoveries,  no  less  marvellous  from  a  theo- 
retical point  of  view  and  yet  more  important  from  a  practical 
point  of  view,  had  come  to  strike  the  world  of  Science  with 
astonishment  and  admiration."  Recapitulating  Pasteur's 
works,  he  said — 

"They  may  be  classed  in  three  series,  constituting  three 
great  discoveries. 

The  first  one  may  be  formulated  thus  :  Each  fermentation 
is  produced  by  the  development  of  a  special  m,icrohe. 

"  The  second  one  may  be  given  this  formula  :  Each  infec- 
tious disease  (those  at  least  that  M.  Pasteur  and  his  immediate 
followers  have  studied)  is  produced  by  the  development  within 
the  organism  of  a  special  microbe. 

"  The  third  one  may  be  expressed  in  this  way  :  The  microbe 
of  an  infectious  disease,  cultivated  under  certain  detrimental 
conditions,  is  attenuated  in  its  pathogenic  activity ;  from  a  virus 
it  has  become  a  vaccine. 

"As  a  practical  consequence  of  the  first  discovery,  M. 
Pasteur  has  given  rules  for  the  manufacture  of  beer  and  of 
vinegar,  and  shown  how  beer  and  wine  may  be  preserved  against 
secondary  fermentations  which  would  turn  them  sour,  bitter  or 
slimy,  and  which  render  difficult  their  transport  and  even  their 
preservation  on  the  spot. 

"  As  a  practical  consequence  of  the  second  discovery,  M. 
Pasteur  has  given  rules  to  be  followed  to  preserve  cattle  from 
splenic  fever  contamination,  and  silkworms  from  the  diseases 
which  decimated  them.  Surgeons,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
succeeded,  by  means  of  the  guidance  it  afforded,  in  effecting 
almost  completely  the  disappearance  of  erysipelas  and  of  the 


376  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

purulent  infections  which  formerly  brought  about  the  death  of 
so  many  patients  after  operations. 

"As  a  practical  consequence  of  the  third  discovery,  M. 
Pasteur  has  given  rules  for,  and  indeed  has  effected,  the  preser- 
vation of  horses,  oxen,  and  sheep  from  the  anthrax  disease 
which  every  year  kills  in  France  about  20,000,000  francs' 
worth.  Swine  will  also  be  preserved  from  the  rouget  disease 
which  decimates  them,  and  poultry  from  the  cholera  which 
makes  such  terrible  havoc  among  them.  Everything  leads  us 
to  hope  that  rabies  will  also  soon  be  conquered."  When  Paul 
Bert  was  congratulated  on  his  report ,  he  said ,  ' '  Admiration  is 
such  a  good ,  wholesome  thing !  !  " 

The  Bill  was  voted  by  the  Chamber,  and  a  fortnight  later  by 
the  Senate,  unanimously.  Pasteur  heard  the  first  news  through 
the  newspapers,  for  he  had  just  gone  to  the  Jura.  On  July 
14,  he  left  Arbois  for  Dole,  where  he  had  promised  to  be 
present  at  a  double  ceremony. 

On  that  national  holiday,  a  statue  of  Peace  was  to  be 
inaugurated,  and  a  memorial  plate  placed  on  the  house  where 
Pasteur  was  born ;  truly  a  harmonious  association  of  ideas. 
The  prefect  of  the  Jura  evidently  felt  it  when,  while  unveiling 
the  statue  in  the  presence  of  Pasteur,  he  said  :  "  This  is 
Peace,  who  has  inspired  Genius  and  the  great  services  it  has 
rendered."  The  official  procession,  followed  by  popular  accla- 
mation, went  on  to  the  narrow  Hue  des  Tanneurs.  When 
Pasteur,  who  had  not  seen  his  native  place  since  his  child- 
hood, found  himself  before  that  tannery,  in  the  low  humble 
rooms  of  which  his  father  and  mother  had  lived ,  he  felt  himself 
the  prey  to  a  strong  emotion. 

The  mayor  quoted  these  words  from  the  resolutions  of  the 
Municipal  Council  :  "  M.  Pasteur  is  a  benefactor  of  Humanity, 
one  of  the  great  men  of  France ;  he  will  remain  for  all  Dolois 
and  in  particular  those  who,  like  him,  have  risen  from  the  ranks 
of  the  people,  an  object  of  respect  as  well  as  an  example  to 
follow ;  we  consider  that  it  is  our  duty  to  perpetuate  his  name 
in  our  town." 

The  Director  of  Fine  Arts,  M.  Kaempfen,  representing  the 
Government  at  the  ceremony,  pronounced  these  simple  words  : 
"  In  the  name  of  the  Government  of  the  Republic,  I  salute  the 
inscription  which  commemorates  the  fact  that  in  this  little 
house,  in  this  httle  street,  w^as  born,  on  December  27,  1822, 


1882—1884  ^77 

he  who  was  to  become  one  of  the  greatest  scientists  of  this  cen- 
tury so  great  in  science,  and  who  has,  by  his  admirable 
labours,  increased  the  glory  of  France  and  deserved  well  of  the 
whole  of  humanity." 

The  feelings  in  Pasteur's  heart  burst  forth  in  these  terms  : 
"  Gentlemen,  I  am  profoundly  moved  by  the  honour  done  to 
me  by  the  town  of  Dole;  but  allow  me,  while  expressing  my 
gratitude,  to  protest  against  this  excess  of  praise.  By  accord- 
ing to  me  a  homage  rendered  usually  but  to  the  illustrious 
dead,  you  anticipate  too  much  the  judgment  of  posterity.  Will 
it  ratify  your  decision?  and  should  not  you,  Mr.  Mayor,  have 
prudently  warned  the  Municipal  Council  against  such  a  hasty 
resolution  ? 

' '  But  after  protesting ,  gentlemen ,  against  the  brilliant  testi- 
mony of  an  admiration  which  is  more  than  I  deserve ,  let  me  tell 
you  that  I  am  touched,  moved  to  the  bottom  of  my  soul.  Your 
sympathy  has  joined  on  that  memorial  plate  the  two  great 
things  which  have  been  the  passion  and  the  delight  of  my  life  : 
the  love  of  Science  and  the  cult  of  the  home. 

"  Oh  !  my  father,  my  mother,  dear  departed  ones,  who  lived 
so  humbly  in  this  little  house,  it  is  to  you  that  I  owe  every- 
thing. Thy  enthusiasm,  my  brave-hearted  mother,  thou  hast 
instilled  it  into  me.  If  I  have  always  associated  the  greatness 
of  Science  with  the  greatness  of  France,  it  is  because  I  was 
impregnated  with  the  feelings  that  thou  hadst  inspired.  And 
thou,  dearest  father,  whose  life  was  as  hard  as  thy  hard  trade, 
thou  hast  shown  to  me  what  patience  and  protracted  effort  can 
accomplish.  It  is  to  thee  that  I  owe  perseverance  in  daily 
work.  Not  only  hadst  thou  the  qualities  which  go  to  make 
a  useful  life,  but  also  admiration  for  great  men  and  great 
things.  To  look  upwards,  learn  to  the  utmost,  to  seek  to  rise 
ever  higher,  such  was  thy  teaching.  I  can  see  thee  now,  after 
a  hard  day's  work,  reading  in  the  evening  some  story  of  the 
battles  in  the  glorious  epoch  of  which  thou  wast  a  witness. 
Whilst  teaching  me  to  read,  thy  care  was  that  I  should  learn 
the  greatness  of  France. 

"Be  ye  blessed,  my  dear  parents,  for  what  ye  have  been, 
and  may  the  homage  done  to-day  to  your  little  house  be 
yours ! 

' '  I  thank  you ,  gentlemen ,  for  the  opportunity  of  saying 
aloud  what  I  have  thought  for  sixty  years.  I  thank  you  for 
this  fete  and  for  your  welcome,  and  I  thank  the  town  of  Dole, 


378  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

which  loses  sight  of  none  of  her  children,  and  which  has  kept 
such  a  remembrance  of  me." 

"Nothing  is  more  exquisite,"  wrote  Bouley  to  Pasteur, 
"than  those  feelings  of  a  noble  heart,  giving  credit  to  the 
parents'  influence  for  all  the  glory  with  which  their  son  has 
covered  their  name.  All  your  friends  recognized  you,  and  you 
appeared  under  quite  a  new  light  to  those  who  may  have 
misjudged  your  heart  by  knowing  of  you  only  the  somewhat 
bitter  words  of  some  of  your  Academy  speeches,  when  the  love 
of  truth  has  sometimes  made  you  forgetful  of  gentleness." 

It  might  have  seemed  that  after  so  much  homage,  especially 
when  offered  in  such  a  delicate  way  as  on  this  last  occasion, 
Pasteur  had  indeed  reached  a  pinnacle  of  fame.  His  ambition 
however  was  not  satisfied.  Was  it  then  boundless,  in  spite  of 
the  modesty  which  drew  all  hearts  towards  him?  What  more 
did  he  wish?  Two  great  things  :  to  complete  his  studies  on 
hydrophobia  and  to  establish  the  position  of  his  collaborators — 
whose  name  he  ever  associated  with  his  work — as  his  acknow- 
ledged successors. 

A  few  cases  of  cholera  had  occurred  at  Damietta  in  the  month 
of  June.  The  English  declared  that  it  was  but  endemic 
cholera,  and  opposed  the  quarantines.  They  had  with  them 
the  majority  of  the  Alexandria  Sanitary  Council,  and  could 
easily  prevent  sanitary  measures  from  being  taken.  If  the 
English,  voluntarily  closing  their  eyes  to  the  dangers  of  the 
epidemic,  had  wished  to  furnish  a  new  proof  of  the  importation 
of  cholera,  they  could  not  have  succeeded  better.  The  cholera 
spread,  and  by  July  14  it  had  reached  Cairo.  Between  the 
14th  and  22nd  there  were  five  hundred  deaths  per  day. 

Alexandria  was  threatened.  Pasteur,  before  leaving  Paris 
for  Arbois,  submitted  to  the  Consulting  Committee  of  Public 
Hygiene  the  idea  of  a  French  Scientific  Mission  to  Alex- 
andria. "  Since  the  last  epidemic  in  1865,"  he  said,  "  science 
has  made  great  progress  on  the  subject  of  transmissible  diseases. 
Every  one  of  those  diseases  which  has  been  subjected  to  a 
thorough  study  has  been  found  by  biologists  to  be  produced  by  a 
microscopic  being  developing  within  the  body  of  man  or  of 
animals,  and  causing  therein  ravages  which  are  generally 
mortal.  All  the  symptoms  of  the  disease,  all  the  causes  of 
death  depend  directly  upon  the  physiological  properties  of  the 
microbe.   .   .   .  What  is  wanted    at    this   moment    to    satisfy 


1882—1884  379 

the  preoccupations  of  science  is  to  inqnire  into  the  primary 
cause  of  the  scourge.  Now  the  present  state  of  knowledge 
demands  that  attention  should  be  drawn  to  the  possible  exist- 
ence within  the  blood,  or  within  some  organ,  of  a  micro- 
organism whose  nature  and  properties  would  account  in  all 
probability  for  all  the  peculiarities  of  cholera,  both  as  to  the 
morbid  symptoms  and  the  mode  of  its  propagation.  The  proved 
existence  of  such  a  microbe  would  soon  take  precedence  over 
the  whole  question  of  the  measures  to  be  taken  to  arrest  the 
evil  in  its  course,  and  might  perhaps  suggest  new  methods  of 
treatment." 

Not  only  did  the  Committee  of  Hygiene  approve  of  Pasteur's 
project,  but  they  asked  him  to  choose  some  young  men  whose 
knowledge  would  be  equalled  by  their  devotion.  Pasteur  only 
had  to  look  around  him.  When,  on  his  return  to  the  laboratory, 
he  mentioned  what  had  taken  place  at  the  Committee  of 
Hygiene,  M.  Koux  immediately  offered  to  start.  A  professor 
at  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  who  had  some  hospital  practice, 
M.  Straus,  and  a  professor  at  the  Alfort  Veterinary  School, 
M.  Nocard,  both  of  whom  had  been  authorised  to  work  in  the 
laboratory,  asked  permission  to  accompany  M.  Boux.  Thuillier 
had  the  same  desire,  but  asked  for  twenty-four  hours  to  think 
over  it. 

The  thought  of  his  father  and  mother,  who  had  made  a  great 
many  sacrifices  for  his  education,  and  whose  only  joy  was  to 
receive  him  at  Amiens,  where  they  lived,  during  his  short 
holidays,  made  him  hesitate.  But  the  thought  of  duty  over- 
came his  regrets ;  he  put  his  papers  and  notes  in  order  and 
went  to  see  his  dear  ones  again.  He  told  his  father  of  his 
intention,  but  his  mother  did  not  know  of  it.  At  the  time  when 
the  papers  spoke  of  a  French  commission  to  study  cholera, 
his  elder  sister,  who  loved  him  with  an  almost  motherly  tender- 
ness, said  to  him  suddenly,  "You  are  not  going  to  Egypt, 
Louis  ?  swear  that  you  are  not !  "  "  I  am  not  going  to  swear 
anything,"  he  answered,  with  absolute  calm;  adding  that  he 
might  some  time  go  to  Kussia  to  proceed  to  some  vaccination  of 
anthrax,  as  he  had  done  at  Buda-Pesth  in  1881.  When  he  left 
Amiens  nothing  in  his  farewells  revealed  his  deep  emotion ;  it 
was  only  from  Marseilles  that  he  wrote  the  truth. 

Administrative  difficulties  retarded  the  departure  of  the 
Commission,  which  only  reached  Egypt  on  August  15.  Dr. 
Koch  had  also  come  to  study  cholera.     The  head  physician  of 


380  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  European  hospital,  Dr.  Ardouin,  placed  his  wards  at  the 
entire  disposal  of  the  French  savants.  In  a  certain  number  of 
cases,  it  was  possible  to  proceed  to  post-mortem  examinations 
immediately  after  death,  before  putrefaction  had  begun.  It 
was  a  great  thing  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  search  after  a 
pathogenic  micro-organism  as  well  as  from  the  anatomo-patho- 
logical  point  of  view. 

The  contents  of  the  intestines  and  the  characteristic  stools  of 
the  cholera  patients  offered  a  great  variety  of  micro-organisms. 
But  which  was  really  the  cause  of  cholera?  The  most  varied 
modes  of  culture  were  attempted  in  vain.  The  same  negative 
results  followed  inoculations  into  divers  animal  species,  cats, 
dogs,  swine,  monkeys,  pigeons,  rabbits,  guinea-pigs,  etc., 
made  with  the  blood  of  cholerics  or  with  the  contents  of  their 
bowels.  Experiments  were  made  with  twenty-four  corpses. 
The  epidemic  ceased  unexpectedly.  Not  to  waste  time,  while 
waiting  for  a  reappearance  of  the  disease,  the  French  Commis- 
sion took  up  some  researches  on  cattle  plague.  Suddenly  a 
telegram  from  M.  Eoux  informed  Pasteur  that  Thuilher  had 
succumbed  to  an  attack  of  cholera. 

"  I  have  just  heard  the  news  of  a  great  misfortune,"  wrote 
Pasteur  to  J.  B.  Dumas  on  September  19;  "  M.  Thuillier 
died  yesterday  at  Alexandria  of  cholera.  I  have  telegraphed 
to  the  Mayor  of  Amiens  asking  him  to  break  the  news  to  the 
family. 

"  Science  loses  in  Thuillier  a  courageous  representative  with 
a  great  future  before  him.  I  lose  a  much-loved  and  devoted 
pupil ;  my  laboratory  one  of  its  principal  supports. 

' '  I  can  only  console  myself  for  this  death  by  thinking  of  our 
beloved  country  and  all  he  has  done  for  it." 

Thuillier  was  only  twenty-six.  How  had  this  happened? 
Had  he  neglected  any  of  the  precautions  which  Pasteur  had 
written  down  before  the  departure  of  the  Commission,  and 
which  were  so  minute  as  to  be  thought  exaggerated  ? 

Pasteur  remained  silent  all  day,  absolutely  overcome.  The 
head  of  the  laboratory,  M.  Chamberland,  divining  his  master's 
grief,  came  to  Arbois.  They  exchanged  their  sorrowful 
thoughts,  and  Pasteur  fell  back  into  his  sad  broodings. 

A  few  days  later,  a  letter  from  M.  Roux  related  the  sad  story  : 
"  Alexandria,  September  21.  Sir  and  dear  master — Having 
just  heard  that  an  Italian  ship  is  going  to  start,  I  am  writing  a 
few   lines   without  waiting   for  the  French   mail.     The   tele- 


1882—1884  381 

graph    has   told   you    of   the    terrible    misfortune    which    has 
befallen  us." 

M.  Eoux  then  proceeded  to  relate  in  detail  the  symptoms 
presented  by  the  unfortunate  young  man,  who,  after  going  to 
bed  at  ten  o'clock,  apparently  in  perfect  health,  had  suddenly 
been  taken  ill  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  Saturday, 
September  16.  At  eight  o'clock,  all  the  horrible  symptoms 
of  the  most  violent  form  of  cholera  were  apparent,  and  his 
friends  gave  him  up  for  lost.  They  continued  their  desperate 
endeavours  however,  assisted  by  the  whole  staff  of  French  and 
Italian  doctors. 

"By  dint  of  all  our  strength,  all  our  energy,  we  protracted 
the  struggle  until  seven  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning,  the 
19th.  The  asphyxia,  which  had  then  lasted  twenty-four  hours, 
was  stronger  than  our  efforts. 

"  Your  own  feelings  will  help  you  to  imagine  our  grief. 
' '  The   French   colony  and  the  medical  staff   are  thunder- 
struck.    Splendid  funeral  honours  have  been  rendered  to  our 
poor  Thuillier. 

"  He  was  buried  at  four  o'clock  on  Wednesday  afternoon, 
with  the  finest  and  most  imposing  manifestation  Alexandria 
had  seen  for  a  long  time. 

"  One  very  precious  and  affecting  homage  was  rendered  by 
the  German  Commission  with  a  noble  simplicity  which  touched 
us  all  very  much. 

"  M.  Koch  and  his  collaborators  arrived  when  the  news 
spread  in  the  town.  They  gave  utterance  to  beautiful  and 
touching  words  to  the  memory  of  our  dead  friend.  When  the 
funeral  took  place,  those  gentlemen  brought  two  wreaths  which 
they  themselves  nailed  on  the  coffin.  *  They  are  simple,'  said 
M.  Koch,  'but  they  are  of  laurel,  such  as  are  given  to  the 
brave.' 

"  M.  Koch  held  one  corner  of  the  pall.  We  embalmed  our 
comrade's  body ;  he  lies  in  a  sealed  zinc  coffin.  All  formalities 
have  been  complied  with,  so  that  his  remains  may  be  brought 
back  to  France  when  the  necessary  time  has  expired.  In 
Egypt  the  period  of  delay  is  a  whole  year. 

' '  The  French  colony  desires  to  erect  a  monument  to  the 
memory  of  Louis  Thuillier. 

"  Dear  master,  how  much  more  I  should  like  to  tell  you  ! 
The  recital  of  the  sad  event  which  happened  so  quickly  would 
take  pages.     This  blow  is  altogether  incomprehensible.     It  was 


382  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

more   than  a  fortnight  since  we  had  seen  a  single  case  of 
cholera ;  we  were  beginning  to  study  cattle-plague. 

"  Of  us  all ,  Thuillier  was  the  one  who  took  most  precautions  ; 
he  was  irreproachably  careful. 

' '  We  are  writing  by  this  post  a  few  lines  to  his  family ,  in 
the  names  of  all  of  us. 

"  Such  are  the  blows  cholera  can  strike  at  the  end  of  an 
epidemic  !  Want  of  time  forces  me  to  close  this  letter.  Pray 
believe  in  our  respectful  affection." 

The  whole  of  the  French  colony,  who  received  great  marks  of 
sympathy  from  the  Italians  and  other  foreigners,  wished  to 
perpetuate  the  memory  of  Thuillier.  Pasteur  wrote,  on  October 
16,  to  a  French  physician  at  Alexandria,  who  had  informed  him 
of  this  project  : 

' '  I  am  touched  with  the  generous  resolution  of  the  French 
colony  at  Alexandria  to  erect  a  monument  to  the  memory  of 
Louis  Thuillier.  That  valiant  and  beloved  young  man  was 
deserving  of  every  honour.  I  know,  perhaps  better  than  any 
one,  the  loss  inflicted  on  science  by  his  cruel  death.  I  cannot 
console  myself,  and  I  am  already  dreading  the  sight  of  the  dear 
fellow's  empty  place  in  my  laboratory." 

On  his  return  to  Paris,  Pasteur  read  a  paper  to  the  Academy 
of  Sciences,  in  his  own  name  and  in  that  of  Thuillier,  on  the 
now  well-ascertained  mode  of  vaccination  for  swine-fever.  He 
began  by  recalling  Thuillier's  worth  : 

Thuillier  entered  my  laboratory  after  taking  the  first  rank 
at  the  Physical  Science  Agregation  competition  at  the  Ecole 
Normale.  His  was  a  deeply  meditative,  silent  nature  ;  his  whole 
person  breathed  a  virile  energy  which  struck  all  those  who  knew 
him.  An  indefatigable  worker,  he  was  ever  ready  for  self- 
sacrifice." 

A  few  days  before,  M.  Straus  had  given  to  the  Biology 
Society  a  summary  statement  of  the  studies  of  the  Cholera  Com- 
mission, concluding  thus:  "The  documents  collected  during 
those  two  months  are  far  from  solving  the  etiological  problem  of 
cholera,  but  will  perhaps  not  be  useless  for  the  orientation  of 
future  research." 

The  cholera  bacillus  was  put  in  evidence ,  later  on,  by  Dr.  Koch, 
who  had  already  suspected  it  during  his  researches  in  Egypt. 

Glory,  which  had  been  seen  in  the  battlefield  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  now  seemed  to  elect  to  dwell  in  the 


1882—1884  383 

laboratory,  that  "  temple  of  the  future  "  as  Pasteur  called  it. 
From  every  part  of  the  world,  letters  reached  Pasteur,  appeals, 
requests  for  consultations.  Many  took  him  for  a  physician. 
"He  does  not  cure  individuals,"  answered  Edmund  About  one 
day  to  a  foreigner  who  was  under  that  misapprehension ;  "  he 
only  tries  to  cure  humanity."  Some  sceptical  minds  were  pre- 
dicting failure  to  his  studies  on  hydrophobia.  This  problem  was 
complicated  by  the  fact  that  Pasteur  was  trying  in  vain  to  dis- 
cover and  isolate  the  specific  microbe. 

He  was  endeavouring  to  evade  that  difficulty ;  the  idea  pur- 
sued him  that  human  medicine  might  avail  itself  of  ' '  the  long 
period  of  incubation  of  hydrophobia,  by  attempting  to  establish, 
during  that  interval  before  the  appearance  of  the  first  rabic 
symptoms,  a  refractory  condition  in  the  subjects  bitten." 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1884,  J.  B.  Dumas  enjoyed 
following  from  a  distance  Pasteur's  readings  at  the  Academic 
des  Sciences.  His  failing  health  and  advancing  age  (he  was 
more  than  eighty  years  old)  had  forced  him  to  spend  the  winter 
in  the  South  of  France.  On  January  26,  1884,  he  wrote  to 
Pasteur  for  the  last  time ,  a  propos  of  a  book  ^  which  was  a  short 
summary  of  Pasteur's  discoveries  and  their  concatenation  : 

"  Dear  colleague  and  friend, — I  have  read  with  a  great  and 
sincere  emotion  the  picture  of  your  scientific  life  drawn  by  a 
faithful  and  loving  hand. 

Myself  a  witness  and  a  sincere  admirer  of  your  happy 
efforts,  your  fruitful  genius  and  your  imperturbable  method, 
I  consider  it  a  great  service  rendered  to  Science,  that  the 
accurate  and  complete  whole  should  be  put  before  the  eyes  of 
young  people. 

' '  It  will  make  a  wholesome  impression  on  the  public  in 
general;  to  young  scientists,  it  will  be  an  initiation,  and  to 
those  who,  like  me,  have  passed  the  age  of  labour  it  will  bring 
happy  memories  of  youthful  enthusiasm. 

"May  Providence  long  spare  you  to  France,  and  maintain  in 
you  that  admirable  equilibrium  between  the  mind  that  observes, 
the  genius  that  conceives,  and  the  hand  that  executes  with  a 
perfection  unknown  until  now." 

This  was  a  last  proof  of  Dumas'  affection  for  Pasteur. 
Although  his  hfe  was  now  fast  drawing  to  its  close,  his  mental 
faculties  were  in  no  wise  impau-ed,  for  we  find  him  three  weeks 
later,  on  February  20,  using  his  influence  as  Permanent  Secre- 

^  La  Vie  d'un  Savant,  by  the  author  of  tie  present  work.     [Trans.] 


384  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

tary  of  the  Academy  to  obtain  the  Lacaze  prize  for  M.  Cailletet, 
the  inventor  of  the  well-known  apparatus  for  the  liquefaction  of 
gases. 

J.  B.  Dumas  died  on  April  11 ,  1884.  Pasteur  was  then  about 
to  start  for  Edinburgh  on  the  occasion  of  the  tercentenary  of  the 
celebrated  Scotch  University.  The  "  Institut  de  France," 
invited  to  take  part  in  these  celebrations,  had  selected  represen- 
tatives from  each  of  the  five  Academies  :  the  Academic 
Frangaise  was  sending  M.  Caro ;  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
Pasteur  and  de  Lesseps ;  the  Academy  of  Moral  Sciences,  M. 
Greard;  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  and  Letters,  M.  Perrot ; 
and  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  M.  Eugene  Guillaume.  The 
College  de  France  sent  M.  Guillaume  Guizot,  and  the  Academy 
of  Medicine  Dr.  Henry  Gueneau  de  Mussy. 

Pasteur  much  wished  to  relinquish  this  official  journey ;  the 
idea  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  follow  to  the  grave  the  incom- 
parable teacher  of  his  youth ,  the  counsellor  and  confidant  of  his 
life,  was  infinitely  painful  to  him. 

He  was  however  reconciled  to  it  by  one  of  his  colleagues, 
M.  Mezieres,  who  was  going  to  Edinburgh  on  behalf  of  the 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  and  who  pointed  out  to  him  that 
the  best  way  of  honouring  Dumas'  memory  lay  in  remembering 
Dumas'  chief  object  in  life — the  interests  of  France.  Pasteur 
went,  hoping  that  he  would  have  an  opportunity  of  speaking  of 
Dumas  to  the  Edinburgh  students. 

In  London,  the  French  delegates  had  the  pleasant  surprise 
of  finding  that  a  private  saloon  had  been  reserved  to  take  Pasteur 
and  his  friends  to  Edinburgh.  This  hospitality  was  offered  to 
Pasteur  by  one  of  his  numerous  admirers,  Mr.  Younger,  an 
Edinburgh  brewer,  as  a  token  of  gratitude  for  his  discoveries  in 
the  manufacture  of  beer.  He  and  his  wife  and  children  wel- 
comed Pasteur  with  the  warmest  cordiality,  when  the  train 
reached  Edinburgh ;  the  principal  inhabitants  of  the  great 
Scotch  city  vied  with  each  other  in  entertaining  the  French 
delegates,  who  were  delighted  with  their  reception. 

The  next  morning,  they,  and  the  various  representatives 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  assembled  in  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Giles,  where,  with  the  exalted  feeling  which,  in  the  Scotch 
people,  mingles  religious  with  political  life,  the  Town  Council 
had  decided  that  a  service  should  inaugurate  the  rejoicings. 
The  Eev.  Eobert  Flint,  mounting  that  pulpit  from  which  the 
impetuous    John    Knox,    Calvin's    friend    and    disciple,    had 


1882—1884  385 

breathed  forth  his  violent  fanaticism,  preached  to  the  immense 
assembly  with  a  full  consciousness  of  the  importance  of  his  dis- 
course. He  spoke  of  the  relations  between  Science  and  Faith, 
of  the  absolute  liberty  of  science  in  the  realm  of  facts,  of  the 
thought  of  God  considered  as  a  stimulant  to  research,  progress 
being  but  a  Divine  impulse. 

In  the  afternoon,  the  students  imparted  life  and  merriment 
into  the  proceedings ;  they  had  organized  a  dramatic  perform- 
ance, the  members  of  the  orchestra,  even,  being  undergraduates. 

The  French  delegates  took  great  interest  in  the  system  of  this 
University.  Accustomed  as  they  were  to  look  upon  the  State 
as  sole  master  and  dispenser,  they  now  saw  an  independent 
institution,  owing  its  fortune  to  voluntary  contributions,  reveal- 
ing in  every  point  the  power  of  private  enterprise.  Unlike 
what  takes  place  in  France,  where  administrative  unity  makes 
itself  felt  in  the  smallest  village,  the  British  Government  effaces 
itself,  and  merely  endeavours  to  inspire  faith  in  political  unity. 
Absolutely  her  own  mistress,  the  University  of  Edinburgh  is 
free  to  confer  high  honorary  degrees  on  her  distinguished 
visitors.  However,  these  honorary  diplomas  are  but  of  two 
kinds,  viz.  :  Doctor  of  Divinity  (D.D.)  and  Doctor  of  Laws 
(LL.D.).  In  1884,  seventeen  degrees  of  D.D.  and  122  degrees 
of  LL.D.  were  reserved  for  the  various  delegates.  "  The  only 
laws  I  know,"  smilingly  said  the  learned  Helmholtz,  "  are  the 
laws  of  Physics." 

The  solemn  proclamation  of  the  University  degrees  took  place 
on  Thursday,  April  17.  The  streets  and  monuments  of  the 
beautiful  city  were  decorated  with  flags,  and  an  air  of  rejoicing 
pervaded  the  whole  atmosphere. 

The  ceremony  began  by  a  special  prayer,  alluding  to  the  past, 
looking  forward  to  the  future,  and  asking  for  God's  blessing  on 
the  delegates  and  their  countries.  The  large  assembly  filled  the 
immense  hall  where  the  Synod  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  holds 
its  meetings.  The  Chancellor  and  the  Eector  of  the  University 
were  seated  on  a  platform  with  a  large  number  of  professors  ; 
those  who  were  about  to  receive  honorary  degrees  occupied  seats 
in  the  centre  of  the  hall ;  about  three  thousand  students  found 
seats  in  various  parts  of  the  hall. 

The  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh  had  arranged 
that  the  new  graduates  should  be  called  in  alphabetical  order. 
As  each  of  them  heard  his  name,  he  rose  and  mounted  the 
platform.     The  students  took  great  pleasure  in  heartily  cheer- 

c  c 


386  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

ing  those  savants  who  had  had  most  influence  on  their  studies 
'V^lien  Pasteur's  name  was  pronounced,  a  great  silence  ensued; 
every  one  was  trying  to  obtain  a  sight  of  him  as  he  walked 
towards  the  platform.  His  appearance  was  the  signal  for  a 
perfect  outburst  of  applause  ;  five  thousand  men  rose  and  cheered 
him.     It  was  indeed  a  splendid  ovation. 

In  the  evening,  a  banquet  was  set  out  in  the  hall,  which  was 
hung  with  the  blue  and  white  colours  of  the  University ;  there 
were  a  thousand  guests,  seated  round  twenty-eight  tables,  one 
of  which,  the  high  table,  was  reserved  for  the  speakers  who  were 
to  propose  the  toasts,  which  were  to  last  four  hours.  Pasteur 
was  seated  next  to  Virchow  ;  they  talked  together  of  the  question 
of  rabies,  and  Virchow  owned  that,  when  he  saw  Pasteur  in 
1881  about  to  tackle  this  question,  he  much  doubted  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  solution.  This  friendly  chat  between  two  such  men 
proves  the  desirability  of  such  gatherings ;  intercourse  between 
the  greatest  scientists  can  but  lead  to  general  peace  and  fra- 
ternity between  nations.  After  having  read  a  telegram  from 
the  Queen,  congratulating  the  University  and  welcoming  the 
guests,  a  toast  was  drunk  to  the  Queen  and  to  the  Eoyal  Family, 
and  a  few  words  spoken  by  the  representative  of  the  Emperor  of 
Brazil.     Pasteur  then  rose  to  speak  : 

"  My  Lord  Chancellor,  Gentlemen,  the  city  of  Edinburgh  is 
now  offering  a  sight  of  which  she  may  be  proud.  All  the  great 
scientific  institutions,  meeting  here,  appear  as  an  immense  Con- 
gress of  hopes  and  congratulations.  The  honour  and  glory  of 
this  international  rendezvous  deservedly  belong  to  you,  for  it  is 
centuries  since  Scotland  united  her  destinies  with  those  of  the 
human  mind.  She  was  one  of  the  first  among  the  nations  to 
understand  that  intellect  leads  the  world.  And  the  world  of 
intellect,  gladly  answering  your  call,  lays  a  well-merited  homage 
at  your  feet.  When,  yesterday,  the  eminent  Professor  Eobert 
Flint,  addressing  the  Edinburgh  University  from  the  pulpit  of 
St.  Giles,  exclaimed,  'Remember  the  past  and  look  to  the 
future,'  all  the  delegates,  seated  like  judges  at  a  great  tribunal, 
evoked  a  vision  of  past  centuries  and  joined  in  a  unanimous  wish 
for  a  yet  more  glorious  future. 

"  Amongst  the  illustrious  delegates  of  all  nations  who  bring 
you  an  assurance  of  cordial  good  wishes,  France  has  sent  to 
represent  her  those  of  her  institutions  which  are  most  represen- 
tative of  the  French  spirit  and  the  best  part  of  French  glory. 
France  is  ready  to  applaud  whenever  a  source  of  light  appears  in 


1882—1884  387 

the  world;  and  when  death  strikes  down  a  man  of  genius, 
France  is  ready  to  weep  as  for  one  of  her  own  children.  This 
noble  spirit  of  solidarity  was  brought  home  to  me  when  I  heard 
some  of  you  speak  feelingly  of  the  death  of  the  illustrious 
chemist,  J.  B.  Dumas,  a  celebrated  member  of  all  your 
Academies,  and  only  a  few  years  ago  an  eloquent  panegyrist  of 
your  gi-eat  Faraday.  It  was  a  bitter  grief  to  me  that  I  had  to 
leave  Paris  before  his  funeral  ceremony  ;  but  the  hope  of  render- 
ing here  a  last  and  solemn  homage  to  that  revered  master 
helped  me  to  conquer  my  affliction.  Moreover,  gentlemen ,  men 
may  pass,  but  their  works  remain  ;  we  all  are  but  passing  guests 
of  these  great  homes  of  intellect,  which,  like  all  the  Universities 
who  have  come  to  greet  you  in  this  solemn  day,  are  assured  of 
immortality." 

Pasteur,  having  thus  rendered  homage  to  J.  B.  Dumas,  and 
having  glorified  his  country  by  his  presence,  his  speech  and  the 
great  honours  conferred  on  him,  would  have  returned  home  at 
once  ;  but  the  undergraduates  begged  to  be  allowed  to  entertain, 
the  next  day,  some  of  those  men  whom  they  looked  upon  as 
examples  and  whom  they  might  never  see  again. 

Pasteur  thanked  the  students  for  this  invitation,  which  filled 
him  with  pride  and  pleasure,  for  he  had  always  loved  young 
people,  he  said,  and  continued,  in  his  deep,  stirring  voice  : 

"Ever  since  I  can  remember  my  life  as  a  man,  I  do  not 
think  I  have  ever  spoken  for  the  first  time  with  a  student  with- 
out saying  to  him,  'Work  perseveringly ;  work  can  be  made 
into  a  pleasure,  and  alone  is  profitable  to  man,  to  his  city,  to 
his  country.'  It  is  even  more  natural  that  I  should  thus  speak 
to  you.  The  common  soul  (if  I  may  so  speak)  of  an  assembly  of 
young  men  is  wholly  formed  of  the  most  generous  feelings,  being 
yet  illumined  with  the  divine  spark  which  is  in  every  man  as 
he  enters  this  world.  You  have  just  given  a  proof  of  this 
assurance,  and  I  have  felt  moved  to  the  heart  in  hearing  you 
applaud,  as  you  have  just  been  doing,  such  men  as  de  Lesseps, 
Helmholtz  and  Virchow.  Your  language  has  borrowed  from 
ours  the  beautiful  word  enthusiasm,  bequeathed  to  us  by  the 
Greeks  :  €v  6e6<;,  an  inward  God.  It  was  almost  with  a 
divine  feeling  that  you  Just  now  cheered  those  great  men. 

"  One  of  those  of  our  writers  who  have  best  made  known 
to  France  and  to  Europe  the  philosophy  of  Eobert  Eeid  and 
Dugald  Stewart  said,  addressing  young  men  in  the  preface  of 
one  of  his  works  :  — 

c  c  2 


388  THE  IJFE  OF  PASTEUR 

' ' '  Whatever  career  you  may  embrace ,  look  up  to  an  exalted 
goal;  worship  great  men  and  great  things.' 

"  Great  things  !  You  have  indeed  seen  them.  Will  not  this 
centenary  remain  one  of  Scotland's  glorious  memories?  As  to 
great  men,  in  no  country  is  their  memory  better  honoured 
than  in  yours.  But,  if  work  should  be  the  very  life  of  your 
life,  if  the  cult  for  great  men  and  great  things  should  be  asso- 
ciated with  your  every  thought,  that  is  still  not  enough.  Try 
to  bring  into  everything  you  undertake  the  spirit  of  scientific 
method,  founded  on  the  immortal  works  of  Galileo,  Descartes 
and  Newton. 

"You  especially,  medical  students  of  this  celebrated  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh — who,  trained  as  you  are  by  eminent  masters, 
may  aspire  to  the  highest  scientific  ambition — be  you  inspired  by 
the  experimental  method.  To  its  principles,  Scotland  owes 
such  men  as  Brewster,  Thomson  and  Lister." 

The  speaker  who  had  to  respond  on  behalf  of  the  students 
to  the  foreign  delegates  expressed  himself  thus,  directly  address- 
ing Pasteur  : 

"  Monsieur  Pasteur,  you  have  snatched  from  nature  secrets 
too  carefully,  almost  maliciously  hidden.  We  greet  in  you  a 
benefactor  of  humanity,  all  the  more  so  because  we  know  that 
you  admit  the  existence  of  spiritual  secrets,  revealed  to  us  by 
what  you  have  just  called  the  work  of  God  in  us. 

"  Eepresentatives  of  France,  we  beg  you  to  tell  your  great 
country  that  we  are  following  with  admiration  the  great  reforms 
now  being  introduced  into  every  branch  of  your  education, 
reforms  which  we  look  upon  as  tokens  of  a  beneficent  rivalry  and 
of  a  more  and  more  cordial  intercouse — for  misunderstandings 
result  from  ignorance,  a  darkness  lightened  by  the  work  of 
scientists." 

The  next  morning,  at  ten  o'clock,  crowds  gathered  on  the 
station  platform  with  waving  handkerchiefs.  People  were 
showing  each  other  a  great  Edinburgh  daily  paper,  in  which 
Pasteur's  speech  to  the  undergraduates  was  reproduced  and 
which  also  contained  the  following  announcement  in  large 
print  : 

"In  memory  of  M.  Pasteur's  visit  to  Edinburgh,  Mr. 
Younger  offers  to  the  Edinburgh  University  a  donation  of 
£500." 

Livingstone's  daughter,  Mrs.  Bruce,  on  whom  Pasteur  had 
called  the  preceding  day,  came  to  the  station  a  few  moments 


1882—1884  389 

before  the  departure  of  the  train,  bringing  him  a  book  entitled 
The  Life  of  Livingstone. 

The  saloon  carriage  awaited  Pasteur  and  his  friends.  They 
departed,  delighted  with  the  hospitality  they  had  received,  and 
much  struck  with  the  prominent  place  given  to  science  and  the 
welcome  accorded  to  Pasteur.  "  This  is  indeed  glory,"  said  one 
of  them.  "  Believe  me,"  said  Pasteur,  "  I  only  look  upon  it  as 
a  reason  for  continuing  to  go  forward  as  long  as  my  strength 
does  not  fail  me." 


CHAPTEE    XII 

1884—1885 

Amidst  the  various  researches  undertaken  in  his  laboratory, 
one  study  was  placed  by  Pasteur  above  every  other,  one  mystery 
constantly  haunted  his  mind — that  of  hydrophobia.  When  he 
was  received  at  the  Academic  Fran^aise,  Eenan,  hoping  to  prove 
himself  a  prophet  for  once,  said  to  him  :  "  Humanity  will  owe 
to  you  deliverance  from  a  horrible  disease  and  also  from  a  sad 
anomaly  :  I  mean  the  distrust  which  we  cannot  help  mingling 
with  the  caresses  of  the  animal  in  whom  we  see  most  of  nature's 
smiling  benevolence." 

The  two  first  mad  dogs  brought  into  the  laboratory  were 
given  to  Pasteur,  in  1880,  by  M.  Bourrel,  an  old  army  veter- 
inary surgeon  who  had  long  been  trying  to  find  a  remedy  for 
hydrophobia.  He  had  invented  a  preventive  measure  which 
consisted  in  fihng  down  the  teeth  of  dogs,  so  that  they  should 
not  bite  into  the  skin ;  in  1874,  he  had  written  that  vivisection 
threw  no  light  on  that  disease,  the  laws  of  which  were  "  impene- 
trable to  science  until  now."  It  now  occurred  to  him  that, 
perhaps,  the  investigators  in  the  laboratory  of  the  Ecole  Nor- 
male  might  be  more  successful  than  he  had  been  in  his  kennels 
in  the  Rue  Fontaine-au-Eoi. 

One  of  the  two  dogs  he  sent  was  suffering  from  what  is  called 
dumb  madness  :  his  jaw  hung,  half  opened  and  paralyzed,  his 
tongue  was  covered  with  foam,  and  his  eyes  full  of  wistful 
anguish ;  the  other  made  ferocious  darts  at  anything  held  out 
to  him,  with  a  rabid  fury  in  his  bloodshot  eyes,  and,  in  the 
hallucinations  of  his  dehrium,  gave  vent  to  haunting,  despairing 
howls. 

Much  confusion  prevailed  at  that  time  regarding  this  disease, 
its  seat,  its  causes,  and  its  remedy.  Three  things  seemed  posi- 
tive :  firstly,  that  the  rabic  virus  was  contained  in  the  saliva  of 
the  mad  animals ;  secondly ,  that  it  was  communicated  through 


1884—1885  391 

bites  ;  and  thirdly,  that  the  period  of  incubation  might  vary  from 
a  few  days  to  several  months.  Clinical  observation  was  reduced 
to  complete  impotence  ;  perhaps  experiments  might  throw  some 
light  on  the  subject. 

Bouley  had  affirmed  in  April,  1870,  that  the  germ  of  the  evil 
was  localized  in  the  saliva,  and  a  new  fact  had  seemed  to  support 
this  theory.  On  December  10,  1880,  Pasteur  was  advised  by 
Professor  Lannelongue  that  a  five-year-old  child,  bitten  on  the 
face  a  month  before,  had  just  been  admitted  into  the  Hopital 
Trousseau.  The  unfortunate  little  patient  presented  all  the 
characteristics  of  hydrophobia  :  spasms,  restlessness,  shudders 
at  the  least  breath  of  air,  an  ardent  thirst,  accompanied  with  an 
absolute  impossibility  of  swallowing,  convulsive  movements,  fits 
of  furious  rage — not  one  symptom  was  absent.  The  child  died 
after  twenty-four  hours  of  horrible  suffering — suffocated  by  the 
mucus  which  filled  the  mouth.  Pasteur  gathered  some  of  that 
mucus  four  hours  after  the  child's  death,  and  mixed  it  with 
water  ;  he  then  inoculated  this  into  some  rabbits,  which  died  in 
less  than  thirty-six  hours,  and  whose  saliva,  injected  into  other 
rabbits,  provoked  an  almost  equally  rapid  death.  Dr.  Maurice 
Eaynaud,  who  had  already  declared  that  hydrophobia  could  be 
transmitted  to  rabbits  through  the  human  saliva,  and  who  had 
also  caused  the  death  of  some  rabbits  with  the  saliva  of  that 
same  child,  thought  himself  justified  in  saying  that  those  rabbits 
had  died  of  hydrophobia. 

Pasteur  was  slower  in  drawing  conclusions.  He  had  examined 
with  a  microscope  the  blood  of  those  rabbits  which  had  died  in 
the  laboratory,  and  had  found  in  it  a  micro-organism;  he  had 
cultivated  this  organism  in  veal  broth,  inoculated  it  into  rabbits 
and  dogs,  and,  its  virulence  having  manifested  itself  in  these 
animals,  their  blood  had  been  found  to  contain  that  same 
microbe.  "But,"  added  Pasteur  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Academy  of  Medicine  (January  18,  1881),  "  I  am  absolutely  ig- 
norant of  the  connection  there  may  be  between  this  new  disease 
and  hydrophobia."  It  was  indeed  a  singular  thing  that  the 
deadly  issue  of  this  disease  should  occur  so  early,  when  the 
incubation  period  of  hydrophobia  is  usually  so  long.  Was  there 
not  some  unknown  microbe  associated  with  the  rabic  saliva? 
This  query  was  followed  by  experiments  made  with  the  saliva 
of  children  who  had  died  of  ordinary  diseases,  and  even  with 
that  of  healthy  adults.  Thuillier,  following  up  and  studying 
this  saliva  microbe  and  its  special  virulence  with  his  usual 


392  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

patience,  soon  applied  to  it  with  success  the  method  of  attenua- 
tion by  the  oxygen  in  air.  "  What  did  we  want  with  a  new 
disease?"  said  a  good  many  people,  and  yet  it  was  making  a 
step  forward  to  clear  up  this  preliminary  confusion.  Pasteur, 
in  the  course  of  a  long  and  minute  study  of  the  saliva  of  mad 
dogs — in  w^hich  it  w^as  so  generally  admitted  that  the  virulent 
principle  of  rabies  had  its  seat,  that  precautions  against  saliva 
were  the  only  ones  taken  at  post-mortem  examinations — dis- 
covered many  other  mistakes.  If  a  healthy  dog's  saliva  contains 
many  microbes,  licked  up  by  the  dog  in  various  kinds  of  dirt, what 
must  be  the  condition  of  the  mouth  of  a  rabid  dog,  springing  upon 
everything  he  meets,  to  tear  it  and  bite  it?  The  rabic  virus  is 
therefore  associated  with  many  other  micro-organisms,  ready  to 
play  their  part  and  puzzle  experimentalists;  abscesses,  morbid 
complications  of  all  sorts,  may  intervene  before  the  develop- 
ment of  the  rabic  virus.  Hydrophobia  might  evidently  be 
developed  by  the  inoculation  of  saliva,  but  it  could  not  be  con- 
fidently asserted  that  it  would.  Pasteur  had  made  endless 
efforts  to  inoculate  rabies  to  rabbits  solely  through  the  saliva 
of  a  mad  dog ;  as  soon  as  a  case  of  hydrophobia  occurred  in 
Bourrel's  kennels,  a  telegram  informed  the  laboratory,  and  a 
few  rabbits  were  immediately  taken  round  in  a  cab. 

One  day ,  Pasteur  having  wished  to  collect  a  little  saliva  from 
the  jaws  of  a  rabid  dog,  so  as  to  obtain  it  directly,  two  of  Bourrel's 
assistants  undertook  to  drag  a  mad  bulldog,  foaming  at  the 
mouth,  from  its  cage;  they  seized  it  by  means  of  a  lasso,  and 
stretched  it  on  a  table.  These  two  men,  thus  associated  with 
Pasteur  in  the  same  danger,  with  the  same  calm  heroism,  held 
the  struggling,  ferocious  animal  down  with  their  powerful 
hands,  whilst  the  scientist  drew,  by  means  of  a  glass  tube  held 
between  his  lips,  a  few  drops  of  the  deadly  saliva. 

But  the  same  uncertainty  followed  the  inoculation  of  the 
saliva ;  the  incubation  was  so  slow  that  weeks  and  months 
often  elapsed  whilst  the  result  of  an  experiment  was  being 
anxiously  awaited.  Evidently  the  saliva  was  not  a  sure  agent 
for  experiments,  and  if  more  knowledge  was  to  be  obtained, 
some  other  means  had  to  be  found  of  obtaining  it. 

Magendie  and  Kenault  had  both  tried  experimenting  with 
rabic  blood,  but  with  no  results,  and  Paul  Bert  had  been 
equally  unsuccessful.  Pasteur  tried  in  his  turn,  but  also  in 
vain.  "  We  must  try  other  experiments,"  he  said,  with  his 
usual  indefatigable  perseverance. 


1884—1885  39S 

As  the  number  of  cases  observed  became  larger,  he  felt  a 
growiEg  conviction  that  hydrophobia  has  its  seat  in  the  nervous 
system,  and  particularly  in  the  medulla  oblongata.  "The 
propagation  of  the  virus  in  a  rabid  dog's  nervous  system  can 
almost  be  observed  in  its  every  stage,"  writes  M.  Eoux, 
Pasteur's  daily  associate  in  these  researches,  which  he  after- 
wards made  the  subject  of  his  thesis.  "The  anguish  and  fury 
due  to  the  excitation  of  the  grey  cortex  of  the  brain  are  followed 
by  an  alteration  of  the  voice  and  a  difficulty  in  deglutition. 
The  medulla  oblongata  and  the  nerves  starting  from  it  are 
attacked  in  their  turn;  finally,  the  spinal  cord  itself  becomes 
invaded  and  paralysis  closes  the  scene." 

As  long  as  the  vkus  has  not  reached  the  nervous  centres,  it 
may  sojourn  for  weeks  or  months  in  some  point  of  the  body ; 
this  explains  the  slowness  of  certain  incubations,  and  the  fortu- 
nate escapes  after  some  bites  from  rabid  dogs.  The  a  'priori 
supposition  that  the  vnus  attacks  the  nervous  centres  went  very 
far  back  ;  it  had  served  as  a  basis  to  a  theory  enunciated  by  Dr. 
Duboue  (of  Pau),  who  had,  however,  not  supported  it  by  any 
experiments.  On  the  contrary,  when  M.  Galtier,  a  professor 
at  the  Lyons  Veterinary  School,  had  attempted  experiments  in 
that  du-ection,  he  had  to  inform  the  Academy  of  Medicine,  in 
January,  1881,  that  he  had  only  ascertained  the  existence  of 
vu-us  in  rabid  dogs  in  the  lingual  glands  and  in  the  bucco- 
pharyngeal mucous  membrane.  "More  than  ten  times,  and 
always  unsuccessfully,  have  I  inoculated  the  product  obtained 
by  pressure  of  the  cerebral  substances  of  ^he  cerebellum  or  of 
the  medulla  oblongata  of  rabid  dogs." 

Pasteur  was  about  to  prove  that  it  was  possible  to  succeed 
by  operating  in  a  special  manner,  according  to  a  rigorous  tech- 
nique, unknown  in  other  laboratories.  When  the  post-mortem 
examination  of  a  mad  dog  had  revealed  no  characteristic  lesion, 
the  brain  was  uncovered,  and  the  surface  of  the  medulla 
oblongata  sCalded  with  a  glass  stick,  so  as  to  destroy  any 
external  dust  or  dirt.  Then,  with  a  long  tube,  previously  put 
through  a  flame,  a  particle  of  the  substance  was  drawn  and 
deposited  in  a  glass  just  taken  from  a  stove  heated  up  to  200°  C. , 
and  mixed  with  a  little  water  or  sterilized  broth  by  means  of  a 
glass  agitator,  also  previously  put  through  a  flame.  The 
syringe  used  for  inoculation  on  the  rabbit  or  dog  (lying  ready  on 
the  operating  board)  had  been  purified  in  boiling  water. 
Most  of  the  animals  who  received  this  inoculation  under  the 


394  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

skin  succumbed  to  hydrophobia  ;  that  virulent  matter  was  there- 
fore more  successful  than  the  saliva,  which  was  a  great  result 
obtained. 

"  The  seat  of  the  rabic  virus,"  wrote  Pasteur,  "  is  therefore 
not  in  the  saliva  only  :  the  brain  contains  it  in  a  degree  of 
virulence  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  saUva  of  rabid  animals," 
But,  to  Pasteur's  eyes,  this  was  but  a  preliminary  step  on  the 
long  road  which  stretched  before  him ;  it  was  necessary  that 
all  the  inoculated  animals  should  contract  hydrophobia,  and 
the  period  of  incubation  had  to  be  shortened. 

It  was  then  that  it  occurred  to  Pasteur  to  inoculate  the  rabic 
virus  dii'ectly  on  the  surface  of  a  dog's  brain.  He  thought 
that,  by  placing  the  virus  from  the  beginning  in  its  true  medium, 
hydrophobia  would  more  surely  supervene  and  the  incubation 
might  be  shorter.  The  experiment  was  attempted  :  a  dog 
under  chloroform  was  fixed  to  the  operating  board,  and  a  small, 
round  portion  of  the  cranium  removed  by  means  of  a  trephine 
(a  surgical  instrument  somewhat  similar  to  a  fret-saw) ;  the 
tough  fibrous  membrane  called  the  dura -mater,  being  thus 
exposed,  was  then  injected  with  a  small  quantity  of  the  pre- 
pared virus,  which  lay  in  readiness  in  a  Pravaz  syringe.  The 
wound  was  washed  with  carbolic  and  the  skin  stitched  to- 
gether, the  whole  thing  lasting  but  a  few  minutes.  The 
dog,  on  returning  to  consciousness,  seemed  quite  the  same 
as  usual.  But,  after  fourteen  days,  hydrophobia  appeared  : 
rabid  fury^  characteristic  howls,  the  tearing  up  and  devour- 
ing of  his  bed,  delirious  hallucination,  and  finally,  paralysis 
and  death. 

A  method  was  therefore  found  by  which  rabies  was  con- 
tracted surely  and  swiftly.  Trephinings  were  again  performed 
on  chloroformed  animals — Pasteur  had  a  great  horror  of  useless 
sufferings,  and  always  insisted  on  anaesthesia.  In  every  case, 
characteristic  hydrophobia  occurred  after  inoculation  on  the 
brain.  The  main  lines  of  this  complicated  question  were  begin- 
ning to  be  traceable ;  but  other  obstacles  were  in  the  way. 
Pasteur  could  not  apply  the  method  he  had  hitherto  used,  i.e. 
to  isolate,  and  then  to  cultivate  in  an  artificial  medium,  the 
microbe  of  hydrophobia,  for  he  failed  in  detecting  this  microbe. 
Yet  its  existence  admitted  of  no  doubt ;  perhaps  it  was  beyond 
the  limits  of  human  sight.  "Since  this  unknown  being  is 
living,"  thought  Pasteur,   "we  must  cultivate  it;  failing  an 


1884—1885  395 

artificial  medium,  let  us  try  the  brain  of  living  rabbits;  it 
would  indeed  be  an  experimental  feat !  ' ' 

As  soon  as  a  trephined  and  inoculated  rabbit  died  paralyzed, 
a  little  of  his  rabic  medulla  was  inoculated  to  another ;  each 
inoculation  succeeded  another,  and  the  time  of  incubation  be- 
came shorter  and  shorter,  until,  after  a  hundred  uninterrupted 
inoculations,  it  came  to  be  reduced  to  seven  days.  But  the 
virus,  having  reached  this  degree,  the  virulence  of  which  was 
found  to  be  greater  than  that  of  the  virus  of  dogs  made  rabid 
by  an  accidental  bite,  now  became  fixed ;  Pasteur  had  mastered 
it.  He  could  now  predict  the  exact  time  when  death  should 
occur  in  each  of  the  inoculated  animals ;  his  predictions  were 
verified  with  surprising  accuracy. 

Pasteur  was  not  yet  satisfied  with  the  immense  progress 
marked  by  infallible  inoculation  and  the  shortened  incubation  ; 
he  now  wished  to  decrease  the  degrees  of  virulence — when  the 
attenuation  of  the  virus  was  once  conquered,  it  might  be  hoped 
that  dogs  could  be  made  refractory  to  rabies.  Pasteur  abstracted 
a  fragment  of  the  medulla  from  a  rabbit  which  had  just  died  of 
rabies  after  an  inoculation  of  the  fixed  virus ;  this  fragment 
was  suspended  by  a  thread  in  a  sterihzed  phial,  the  air  in  which 
was  kept  dry  by  some  pieces  of  caustic  potash  lying  at  the  bottom 
of  the  vessel  and  which  was  closed  by  a  cotton-wool  plug  to  pre- 
vent the  entrance  of  atmospheric  dusts.  The  temperature  of 
the  room  where  this  desiccation  took  place  was  maintained  at 
23°  C.  As  the  medulla  gradually  became  dry,  its  virulence 
decreased,  until,  at  the  end  of  fourteen  days,  it  had  become 
absolutely  extinguished.  This  now  inactive  medulla  was 
crushed  and  mixed  with  pure  water,  and  injected  under  the 
skin  of  some  dogs.  The  next  day  they  were  inoculated  with 
medulla  which  had  been  desiccating  for  thirteen  days,  and  so 
on,  using  increased  virulence  until  the  medulla  was  used  of  a 
rabbit  dead  the  same  day.  These  dogs  might  now  be  bitten  by 
rabid  dogs  given  them  as  companions  for  a  few  minutes,  or 
submitted  to  the  intracranial  inoculations  of  the  deadly  virus  : 
they  resisted  both. 

Having  at  last  obtained  this  refractory  condition,  Pasteur  was 
anxious  that  his  results  should  be  verified  by  a  Commission. 
The  Minister  of  Pubhc  Instruction  acceded  to  this  desire,  and 
a  Commission  was  constituted  in  May,  1884,  composed  of 
Messrs.  Beclard,  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine,  Paul  Bert, 
Bouley,   Villemin,   Vulpian,   and   Tisserand,  Director  of  the 


396  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Agriculture  Office.  The  Commission  immediately  set  to  work  ; 
a  rabid  dog  having  succumbed  at  Alfort  on  June  1,  its  carcase 
was  brought  to  the  laboratory  of  the  Ecole  Normale,  and  a  frag- 
ment of  the  medulla  oblongata  was  mixed  with  some  sterilized 
broth.  Two  dogs,  declared  by  Pasteur  to  be  refractory  to 
rabies,  were  trephined,  and  a  few  drops  of  the  liquid  injected 
into  their  brains ;  two  other  dogs  and  two  rabbits  received 
inoculations  at  the  same  time,  with  the  same  liquid  and  in 
precisely  the  same  manner. 

Bouley  was  taking  notes  for  a  report  to  be  presented  to  the 
Minister  : 

"  M.  Pasteur  tells  us  that,  considering  the  nature  of  the 
rabic  virus  used,  the  rabbits  and  the  two  new  dogs  will  develop 
rabies  within  twelve  or  fifteen  days,  and  that  the  two  refractory 
dogs  will  not  develop  it  at  all,  however  long  they  may  be 
detained  under  observation." 

On  May  29,  Mme.  Pasteur  wrote  to  her  children  : 

"The  Commission  on  rabies  met  to-day  and  elected  M. 
Bouley  as  chairman.  Nothing  is  settled  as  to  commencing 
experiments.  Your  father  is  absorbed  in  his  thoughts,  talks 
little,  sleeps  little,  rises  at  dawn,  and,  in  one  word,  continues 
the  life  I  began  with  him  this  day  thirty-five  years  ago." 

On  June  3,  Bourrel  sent  word  that  he  had  a  rabid  dog  in 
the  kennels  of  the  Eue  Fontaine-au-Eoi ;  a  refractory  dog 
and  a  new  dog  were  immediately  submitted  to  numerous 
bites ;  the  latter  was  violently  bitten  on  the  head  in  several 
places.  The  rabid  dog,  still  living  the  next  day  and  still  able 
to  bite,  was  given  two  more  dogs,  one  of  which  was  refractory ; 
this  dog,  and  the  refractory  dog  bitten  on  the  3rd,  were 
allowed  to  receive  the  first  bites,  the  Commission  having 
thought  that  perhaps  the  saliva  might  then  be  more  abundant 
and  more  dangerous. 

On  June  6,  the  rabid  dog  having  died,  the  Commission  pro- 
ceeded to  inoculate  the  medulla  of  the  animal  into  six  more 
dogs,  by  means  of  trephining.  Three  of  those  dogs  were 
refractory,  the  three  others  were  fresh  from  the  kennels ;  there 
were  also  two  rabbits. 

On  the  10th,  Bourrel  telegraphed  the  arrival  of  another 
rabid  dog,  and  the  same  operations  were  gone  through. 

"  This  rabid,  furious  dog,"  wrote  Pasteur  to  his  son-in-law, 
"  had  spent  the  night  lying  on  his  master's  bed  ;  his  appearance 
had  been  suspicious  for  a  day  or  two.     On  the  morning  of  the 


1884—1885  397 

10th,  his  voice  became  rabietic,  and  his  master,  who  had 
heard  the  bark  of  a  rabid  dog  twenty  years  ago,  was  seized 
with  terror,  and  brought  the  dog  to  M.  Bourrel,  who  found  that 
he  was  indeed  in  the  biting  stage  of  rabies.  Fortunately  a 
lingering  fidelity  had  prevented  him  from  attacking  his 
master.   .   .  . 

"  This  morning  the  rabic  condition  is  beginning  to  appear 
on  one  of  the  new  dogs  trephined  on  June  1 ,  at  the  same  time 
as  two  refractory  dogs.  Let  us  hope  that  the  other  new  dog 
will  also  develop  it  and  that  the  two  refractory  ones  will 
resist." 

At  the  same  time  that  the  Commission  examined  this  dog 
which  developed  rabies  within  the  exact  time  indicated  by 
Pasteur,  the  two  rabbits  on  whom  inoculation  had  been  per- 
formed at  the  same  time  were  found  to  present  the  first 
symptoms  of  rabic  paralysis.  "  This  paralysis,"  noted  Bouley, 
is  revealed  by  great  weakness  of  the  limbs,  particularly  of 
the  hind  quarters ;  the  least  shock  knocks  them  over  and 
they  experience  great  difficulty  in  getting  up  again."  The 
second  new  dog  on  whom  inoculation  had  been  performed 
on  June  1  was  now  also  rabid ;  the  refractory  dogs  were  in 
perfect  health. 

During  the  whole  of  June,  Pasteur  found  time  to  keep  his 
daughter  and  son-in-law  informed  of  the  progress  of  events. 
"Keep  my  letters,"  he  wrote,  "they  are  almost  like  copies 
of  the  notes  taken  on  the  experiments." 

Towards  the  end  of  the  month,  dozens  of  dogs  were  sub- 
mitted to  control-experiments  which  were  continued  until 
August.  The  dogs  which  Pasteur  declared  to  be  refractory 
underwent  all  the  various  tests  made  with  rabic  virus ;  bites , 
injections  into  the  veins,  trephining,  everything  was  tried 
before  Pasteur  would  decide  to  call  them  vaccinated.  On 
June  17,  Bourrel  sent  word  that  the  new  dog  bitten  on  June  3 
was  becoming  rabic ;  the  members  of  the  Commission  went  to 
the  Kue  Fontaine-au-Eoi.  The  period  of  incubation  had  only 
lasted  fourteen  days,  a  fact  attributed  by  Bouley  to  the  bites 
having  been  chiefly  about  the  head.  The  dog  was  destroying 
his  kennel  and  biting  his  chain  ferociously.  More  new  dogs 
developed  rabies  the  following  days.  Nineteen  new  dogs  had 
been  experimented  upon  :  three  died  out  of  six  bitten  by  a 
rabid  dog,  six  out  of  eight  after  intravenous  inoculation,  and 
five  out  of  five  after  subdural  inoculation.     Bouley  thought  that 


398  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

a  few  more  cases  might  occur,  the  period  of  incubation  after 
bites  being  so  extremely  irregular. 

Bouley's  report  was  sent  to  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion at  the  beginning  of  August.  "We  submit  to  you  to- 
day," he  wrote,  "this  report  on  the  first  series  of  experiments 
that  we  have  just  witnessed,  in  order  that  M.  Past^eur 
may  refer  to  it  in  the  paper  which  he  proposes  to  read 
at  the  Copenhagen  International  Scientific  Congress  on 
these  magnificent  results,  which  devolve  so  much  credit  on 
French  Science  and  which  give  it  a  fresh  claim  to  the  world's 
gratitude." 

The  Commission  wished  that  a  large  kennel  yard  might  be 
built,  in  order  that  the  duration  of  immunity  in  protected  dogs 
might  be  timed,  and  that  other  great  problem  solved,  viz., 
whether  it  would  be  possible,  through  the  inoculation  of 
attenuated  virus,  to  defy  the  virus  from  bites. 

By  the  Minister's  request,  the  Commission  investigated  the 
Meudon  woods  in  search  of  a  favourable  site ;  an  excellent 
place  was  found  in  the  lower  part  of  the  Park,  away  from 
dwelling  houses,  easy  to  enclose  and  presumably  in  no  one's 
way.  But,  when  the  inhabitants  of  Meudon  heard  of  this 
project,  they  protested  vehemently,  evidently  terrified  at  the 
thought  of  rabid  dogs,  however  securely  bound,  in  their  peace- 
ful neighbourhood. 

Another  piece  of  ground  was  then  suggested  to  Pasteur,  near 
St.  Cloud,  in  the  Park  of  Villeneuve  I'Etang.  Originally  a 
State  domain,  this  property  had  been  put  up  for  sale,  but  had 
found  no  buyer,  not  being  suitable  for  parcelling  out  in  small 
lots  ;  the  Bill  was  withdrawn  which  allowed  of  its  sale  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  domain  was  devoted  by  the  Ministry  to 
Pasteur's  and  his  assistants'  experiments  on  the  prophylaxis 
of  contagious  diseases. 

Pasteur,  his  mind  full  of  ideas,  started  for  the  International 
Medical  Congress,  which  was  now  to  take  place  at  Copenhagen. 
Sixteen  hundred  members  arranged  to  attend,  and  nearly  all 
of  them  found  on  arriving  that  they  were  to  be  entertained  in 
the  houses  of  private  individuals.  The  Danes  carry  hospitality 
to  the  most  generous  excess ;  several  of  them  had  been  learn- 
ing French  for  the  last  three  years,  the  better  to  entertain 
the  French  delegates.  Pasteur's  son,  then  secretary  of  the 
French  Legation  at  Copenhagen,  had  often  spoken  to  his 
father  with  appreciative  admiration  of  those  Northerners,  who 


1884—1885  399 

hide    deep    enthusiasm    under    apparent    calmness,    almost 
coldness. 

The  opening  meeting  took  place  on  August  10  in  the  large 
hall  of  the  Palace  of  Industry ;  the  King  and  Queen  of 
Denmark  and  the  King  and  Queen  of  Greece  were  present  at 
that  impressive  gathering.  The  President,  Professor  Panum, 
welcomed  the  foreign  members  in  the  name  of  his  country ;  he 
proclaimed  the  neutrality  of  Science,  adding  that  the  three 
official  languages  to  be  used  during  the  Congress  would  be 
French,  English,  and  German.  His  own  speech  was  entirely 
in  French,  "the  language  which  least  divides  us,"  he  said, 
' '  and  which  we  are  accustomed  to  look  upon  as  the  most 
courteous  in  the  world." 

The  former  president  of  the  London  Congress,  Sir  James 
Paget ,  emphasized  the  scientific  consequences  of  those  triennial 
meetings,  showing  that,  thanks  to  them,  nations  may  calculate 
the  march  of  progress. 

Virchow,  in  the  name  of  Germany,  developed  the  same  idea. 

Pasteur,  representing  Prance,  showed  again  as  he  had  done 
at  Milan  in  1878,  in  London  in  1881,  at  Geneva  in  1882,  and 
quite  recently  in  Edinburgh,  how  much  the  scientist  and  the 
patriot  were  one  in  him. 

"In  the  name  of  Prance,"  said  he,  "I  thank  M.  le 
President  for  his  words  of  welcome  .  .  .  By  our  presence 
in  this  Congress,  we  affirm  the  neutrality  of  Science  .  .  . 
Science  is  of  no  country.  .  .  .  But  if  Science  has  no 
country,  the  scientist  must  keep  in  mind  all  that  may  work 
towards  the  glory  of  his  country.  In  every  great  scientist  will 
be  found  a  great  patriot.  The  thought  of  adding  to  the  great- 
ness of  his  country  sustains  him  in  his  long  efforts,  and  throws 
him  into  the  difficult  but  glorious  scientific  enterprises  which 
bring  about  real  and  durable  conquests.  Humanity  then 
profits  by  those  labours  coming  from  various  directions.   .   .   ." 

At  the  end  of  the  meeting  Pasteur  was  presented  to  the  King. 
The  Queen  of  Denmark  and  the  Queen  of  Greece,  regardless 
of  etiquette,  walked  towards  him,  "  a  signal  proof,"  wrote  a 
French  contemporary,  "  of  the  esteem  in  which  our  illustrious 
countryman  is  held  at  the  Danish  Court." 

Five  general  meetings  were  to  give  some  of  the  scientists  an 
opportunity  of  expounding  their  views  on  subjects  of  universal 
interest.  Pasteur  was  asked  to  read  the  first  paper ;  his 
audience  consisted,  besides  the  members  of  the  Congress,  of 


400  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

many  other  men  interested  in  scientific  things,  who  had  come 
to  hear  him  describe  the  steps  by  which  he  had  made  such 
secure  progress  in  the  arduous  question  of  hydrophobia.  He 
began  by  a  declaration  of  war  against  the  prejudice  by  which 
so  many  people  believe  that  rabies  can  occur  spontaneously. 
Whatever  the  pathological,  physiological,  or  other  conditions 
may  be  under  which  a  dog  or  another  animal  is  placed,  rabies 
never  appears  if  the  animal  has  not  been  bitten  or  licked  by 
another  rabid  animal ;  this  is  so  truly  the  case  that  hydrophobia 
is  unknown  in  certain  countries.  In  order  to  preserve  a  whole 
land  from  the  disease,  it  is  sufficient  that  a  law  should,  as  in 
Australia,  compel  every  imported  dog  to  be  in  quarantine  for 
several  months  ;  he  would  then,  if  bitten  by  a  mad  dog  before 
his  departure,  have  ample  time  to  die  before  infecting  other 
animals.  Norway  and  Lapland  are  equally  free  from  rabies,  a 
few  good  prophylactic  measures  being  sufficient  to  avert  the 
scourge. 

It  will  be  objected  that  there  must  have  been  a  first  rabid 
dog  originally.  "  That,"  said  Pasteur,  "  is  a  problem  which 
cannot  be  solved  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge,  for  it  par- 
takes of  the  great  and  unknown  mystery  of  the  origin  of  life." 

The  audience  followed  with  an  impassioned  curiosity  the 
history  of  the  stages  followed  by  Pasteur  on  the  road  to  his 
great  discovery  :  the  preliminary  experiments,  the  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  rabic  virus  invades  the  nervous  centres, 
the  culture  of  the  virus  within  living  animals,  the  attenua- 
tion of  the  rabic  virus  when  passed  from  dogs  to  monkeys,  and 
simultaneously  with  this  graduated  attenuation,  a  converse 
process  by  successive  passages  from  rabbit  to  rabbit,  the  pos- 
sibility of  obtaining  in  this  way  all  the  degrees  of  virulence, 
and  finally  the  acquired  certainty  of  having  obtained  a  pre- 
ventive vaccine  against  canine  hydrophobia. 

"Enthusiastic  applause,"  wrote  the  reporter  of  the  Journal 
des  Dehats,  "greeted  the  conclusion  of  the  indefatigable 
worker." 

In  the  course  of  one  of  the  excursions  arranged  for  the 
members  of  the  Congress,  Pasteur  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
his  methods  applied  on  a  large  scale,  not  as  in  Italy  to  the 
progress  of  sericiculture,  but  to  that  of  the  manufacture  of 
beer.  J.  C.  Jacobsen,  a  Danish  citizen,  whose  name  was 
celebrated  in  the  whole  of  Europe  by  his  munificent  donations 
to  science,  had  founded  in  1847  the  Carlsberg  Brewery,  now 


1884—1885  401 

one  of  the  most  important  in  the  world  ;  at  least  200 ,000  hecto- 
litres were  now  produced  every  year  by  the  Carlsberg  Brewery 
and  the  Ny  Carlsberg  branch  of  it,  which  was  under  the 
direction  of  Jacobsen's  son. 

In  1879,  Jacobsen,  who  was  unknown  to  Pasteur,  wrote  to 
him ,  "  I  should  be  very  much  obliged  if  you  would  allow  me 
to  order  from  M.  Paul  Dubois,  one  of  the  great  artists  who  do 
France  so  much  credit,  a  marble  bust  of  yourself,  which  I 
desire  to  place  in  the  Carlsberg  laboratory  in  token  of  the 
services  rendered  to  chemistry,  physiology,  and  beer-manu- 
facture, by  your  studies  on  fermentation,  a  foundation  to  all 
future  progress  in  the  brewer's  trade."  Paul  Dubois'  bust  is  a 
masterpiece  :  it  is  most  characteristic  of  Pasteur — the  deep 
thoughtful  far-away  look  in  his  eyes,  a  somewhat  stern  expres- 
sion on  his  powerful  features. 

Actuated,  like  his  father,  by  a  feeling  of  gratitude,  the 
younger  Jacobsen  had  placed  a  bronze  reproduction  of  this 
bust  in  a  niche  in  the  wall  of  the  brewery,  at  the  entrance 
of  the  Pasteur  Street,  leading  to  Ny  Carlsberg. 

This  visit  to  the  brewery  was  an  object  lesson  to  the  members 
of  the  Congress,  who  were  magnificently  entertained  by 
Jacobsen  and  his  son  ;  no  better  demonstration  was  ever  made 
of  the  services  which  industry  may  receive  from  science.  In 
^he  great  laboratory,  the  physiologist  Hansen  had  succeeded 
in  finding  differences  in  yeast ;  he  had  just  separated  from  each 
other  three  kinds  of  yeast,  each  producing  beer  with  a  different 
flavour. 

The  French  scientists  were  delighted  with  the  practical 
sense  and  delicate  feelings  of  the  Danish  people.  Though  they 
had  gone  through  bitter  trials  in  1864,  though  France,  England, 
and  Eussia  had  countenanced  the  unrighteous  invasion,  in 
the  face  of  the  old  treaties  which  guaranteed  to  Denmark  the 
possession  of  Schleswig,  the  diminished  and  impoverished 
nation  had  not  given  vent  to  barren  recriminations  or  declama- 
tory protests.  Proudly  and  silently  sorrowing,  the  Danes 
had  preserved  their  respect  for  the  past,  faith  in  justice  and 
the  cult  of  their  great  men.  It  is  a  strange  thing  that 
Shakespeare  should  have  chosen  that  land  of  good  sense  and 
well-balanced  reason  for  the  surroundings  of  his  mysterious 
hero,  of  all  men  the  most  haunted  by  the  maddening  enigma 
of  destiny. 

Blsinore  is  but  a  short  distance  from  Copenhagen,  and  no 


40S  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

member  of  the  Congress,  especially  among  the  English 
section,  could  have  made  up  his  mind  to  leave  Denmark 
without  visiting  Hamlet's  home. 

A  Transport  Company  organized  the  visit  to  Elsinore  for  a 
day  when  the  Congress  had  arranged  to  have  a  complete  holi- 
day. Five  steamers,  gay  with  flags,  were  provided  for  the 
thousand  medical  men  and  their  families,  and  accomplished 
the  two  hours'  crossing  to  Elsinore  on  a  lovely,  clear  day,  with 
an  absolutely  calm  sea.  The  scientific  tourists  landed  at  the 
foot  of  the  old  Kronborg  Castle,  ready  for  the  lunch  which  was 
served  out  to  them  and  which  proved  barely  sufficient  for  their 
appetites  ;  there  was  not  quite  enough  bread  for  the  Frenchmen, 
proverbially  bread-eaters,  and  the  water,  running  a  little  short, 
had  to  be  supplemented  with  champagne. 

Some  of  the  visitors  returned  from  a  neighbouring  wood, 
where  they  had  been  to  see  the  stones  of  the  supposed  tomb  of 
Hamlet,  disappointed  at  having  looked  in  vain  for  Ophelia's 
stream  and  for  the  willow  tree  which  heard  her  sing  her  last 
song,  her  hands  full  of  flowers.  Evidently  this  place  w^as  but 
an  imaginary  scenery  given  by  Shakespeare  to  the  drama 
which  stands  like  a  point  of  interrogation  before  the  mystery 
of  human  life ;  but  his  life-giving  art  has  for  ever  made  of 
Elsinore  the  place  where  Hamlet  lived  and  suffered. 

Pasteur,  to  whom  the  Danish  character,  in  its  strength  and 
simplicity,  proved  singularly  attractive,  remained  in  Copen- 
hagen for  some  time  after  the  Congress  was  over.  He  had 
much  pleasure  in  visiting  the  Thorwaldsen  Museum. 
Copenhagen,  after  showering  honours  on  the  great  artist  during 
his  lifetime,  has  continued  to  w'orship  him  after  his  death. 
Eveiy  statue,  every  plaster  cast,  is  preserved  in  that  Museum 
with  extraordinary  care.  Thorwaldsen  himself  lies  in  the 
midst  of  his  works — his  simple  stone  grave,  covered  with 
graceful  ivy,  is  in  one  of  the  courtyards  of  the  Museum. 

Pasteur  went  on  to  Arbois  from  Copenhagen.  The 
laboratory  he  had  built  there  not  being  large  enough  to  take 
in  rabid  dogs,  he  dictated  from  his  study  the  experiments 
to  be  carried  out  in  Paris ;  his  carefully  kept  notebooks  enabled 
him  to  know  exactly  how  things  were  going  on.  His  nephew, 
Adi'ien  Loir,  now  a  curator  in  the  laboratory  of  Eue  d'Ulm, 
had  gladly  given  up  his  holidays  and  remained  in  Paris  with 
the  faithful  Eucrene  Viala.     This  excellent  assistant  had  come 


1884—1885  403 

to  Paris  from  Alais  in  1871,  at  the  request  of  Pasteur,  who 
knew  his  family.  Viala  was  then  only  twelve  years  old  and 
could  barely  read  and  write.  Pasteur  sent  him  to  an  evening 
school  and  himself  helped  him  with  his  studies ;  the  boy  was 
very  intelligent  and  willing  to  learn.  He  became  most  useful 
to  Pasteur,  who,  in  1885,  was  glad  to  let  him  undertake  a  great 
deal  of  the  laboratory  work,  under  the  guidance  of  M.  Eoux ; 
he  was  ultimately  entrusted  with  all  the  trephining  operations 
on  dogs,  rabbits,  and  guinea-pigs. 

The  letters  written  to  him  by  Pasteur  in  1884  show  the  exact 
point  reached  at  that  moment  by  the  investigations  on  hydro- 
phobia. Many  people  already  thought  those  studies  advanced 
enough  to  allow  the  method  of  treatment  to  be  applied  to 
man. 

Pasteur  wrote  to  Viala  on  September  19,  "  Tell  M.  Adrien 
(Loir)  to  send  the  following  telegram  :  '  Surgeon  Symonds, 
Oxford,  England.  Operation  on  man  still  impossible.  No 
possibility  a.t  present  of  sending  attenuated  virus.'  See  MM. 
Bourrel  and  Beraud,  procure  a  dog  which  has  died  of  street- 
rabies,  and  use  its  medulla  to  inoculate  a  new  monkey,  two 
guinea-pigs  and  two  rabbits.  ...  I  am  afraid  Nocard's 
dog  cannot  have  been  rabid ;  even  if  you  were  sure  that  he 
was,  you  had  better  try  those  tests  again. 

"  Since  M.  Bourrel  says  he  has  several  mad  dogs  at  present, 
you  might  take  two  couple  of  new  dogs  to  his  kennels ;  when 
he  has  a  good  biting  dog,  he  can  have  a  pair  of  our  dogs  bitten, 
after  which  you  will  treat  one  of  them  so  as  to  make  him 
refractory  (carefully  taking  note  of  the  time  elapsed  between 
the  bites  and  the  beginning  of  the  treatment) .  Mind  you  keep 
notes  of  every  new  experiment  undertaken,  and  write  to  me 
every  other  day  at  least." 

Pasteur  pondered  on  the  means  of  extinguishing  hydrophobia 
or  of  merely  diminishing  its  frequency.  Could  dogs  be  vacci- 
nated ?  There  are  100,000  dogs  in  Paris,  about  2,500,000 
more  in  the  provinces  :  vaccination  necessitates  several  pre- 
ventive inoculations ;  innumerable  kennels  would  have  to  be 
built  for  the  purpose,  to  say  nothing  of  the  expense  of  keeping 
the  dogs  and  of  providing  a  trained  staff  capable  of  performing 
the  difficult  and  dangerous  operations.  And,  as  M.  Nocard 
truly  remarked,  where  were  rabbits  to  be  found  in  sufficient 
number  for  the  vaccine  emulsions? 

Optional  vaccination  did  not  seem  more  practicable ;  it  could 

D  D  2 


404  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

only  be  worked  on  a  very  restricted  scale  and  was  therefore  of 
very  little  use  in  a  general  way. 

The  main  question  was  the  possibility  of  preventing  hydro- 
phobia from  occurring  in  a  human  being,  previously  bitten  by  a 
rabid  dog. 

The  Emperor  of  Brazil,  who  took  the  greatest  interest  in 
the  doings  of  the  Ecole  Normale  laboratory,  having  written  to 
Pasteur  asking  when  the  preventive  treatment  could  be  applied 
to  man,  Pasteur  answered  as  follows — 

"  September  22. 

"  Sire — Baron  Itajuba,  the  Minister  for  Brazil,  has  handed 
me  the  letter  which  Your  Majesty  has  done  me  the  honour  of 
writing  on  August  21.  The  Academy  welcomed  with  unani- 
mous sympathy  your  tribute  to  the  memory  of  our  illustrious 
colleague,  M.  Dumas;  it  will  listen  with  similar  pleasure  to 
the  words  of  regret  which  you  desire  me  to  express  on  the 
subject  of  M.  Wurtz's  premature  death. 

"  Your  Majesty  is  kind  enough  to  mention  my  studies  on 
hydrophobia  ;  they  are  making  good  and  uninterrupted  pro- 
gress. I  consider,  however,  that  it  will  take  me  nearly  two 
years  more  to  bring  them  to  a  happy  issue.   .   .   . 

' '  What  I  want  to  do  is  to  obtain  prophylaxis  of  rabies  after 
bites. 

"  Until  now  I  have  not  dared  to  attempt  anything  on  men, 
in  spite  of  my  own.  confidence  in  the  result  and  the  numerous 
opportunities  afforded  to  me  since  my  last  reading  at  the 
Academy  of  Sciences.  I  fear  too  much  that  a  failure  might 
compromise  the  future,  and  I  want  first  to  accumulate  success- 
ful cases  on  animals.  Things  in  that  direction  are  going  very 
well  indeed ;  I  already  have  several  examples  of  dogs  made 
refractory  after  a  rabietic  bite.  I  take  two  dogs,  cause  them 
both  to  be  bitten  by  a  mad  dog ;  I  vaccinate  the  one  and  leave 
the  other  without  any  treatment  :  the  latter  dies  and  the  first 
remains  perfectly  well. 

"  But  even  when  I  shall  have  multiplied  examples  of  the 
prophylaxis  of  rabies  in  dogs,  I  think  my  hand  will  tremble 
when  I  go  on  to  Mankind.  It  is  here  that  the  high  and  power- 
ful initiative  of  the  head  of  a  State  might  intervene  for  the  good 
of  humanity.  If  I  were  a  King,  an  Emperor,  or  even  the 
President  of  a  Eepublic ,  this  is  how  I  should  exercise  my  right 
of  pardoning  criminals  condemned  to  death.  I  should  invite 
the  counsel  of  a  condemned  man,  on  the  eve  of  the  day  fixed 


1884—1885  405 

for  his  execution,  to  choose  between  certain  death  and  an 
experiment  which  would  consist  in  several  preventive  inocula- 
tions of  rabic  virus,  in  order  to  make  the  subject's  constitution 
refractory  to  rabies.  If  he  survived  this  experiment — and  I 
am  convinced  that  he  would — his  life  would  be  saved  and  his 
punishment  commuted  to  a  lifelong  surveillance ,  as  a  guarantee 
towards  that  society  which  had  condemned  him. 

"  All  condemned  men  would  accept  these  conditions,  death 
being  their  only  terror. 

"  This  brings  me  to  the  question  of  cholera,  of  which  Your 
Majesty  also  has  the  kindness  to  speak  to  me.  Neither  Dr. 
Koch  nor  Drs.  Straus  and  Eoux  have  succeeded  in  giving 
cholera  to  animals,  and  therefore  great  uncertainty  prevails 
regarding  the  bacillus  to  which  Dr.  Koch  attributes  the  causa- 
tion of  cholera.  It  ought  to  be  possible  to  try  and  communicate 
cholera  to  criminals  condemned  to  death,  by  the  injection  of 
cultures  of  that  bacillus.  When  the  disease  declared  itself,  a 
test  could  be  made  of  the  remedies  which  are  counselled  as 
apparently  most  efficacious. 

"I  attach  so  much  importance  to  these  measures,  that,  if 
Your  Majesty  shared  my  views,  I  should  willingly  come  to 
Eio  Janeiro,  notwithstanding  my  age  and  the  state  of  my 
health,  in  order  to  undertake  such  studies  on  the  prophylaxis 
of  hydrophobia  and  the  contagion  of  cholera  and  its  remedies. 

"I  am,  with  profound  respect,  Your  Majesty's  humble  and 
obedient  servant." 

In  other  times,  the  right  of  pardon  could  be  exercised  in 
the  form  of  a  chance  of  life  offered  to  a  criminal  lending  him- 
self to  an  experiment.  Louis  XVI,  having  admired  a  fire 
balloon  rising  above  Versailles,  thought  of  proposing  to  two 
condemned  men  that  they  should  attempt  to  go  up  in  one. 
But  Pilatre  des  Eoziers,  whose  ambition  it  was  to  be  the  first 
aeronaut,  was  indignant  at  the  thought  that  "vile  criminals 
should  be  the  first  to  rise  up  in  the  air."  He  won  his  cause, 
and  in  November,  1783,  he  organized  an  ascent  at  the  Muette 
which  lasted  twenty  minutes. 

In  England,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  before  Jenner's  dis- 
covery, successful  attempts  had  been  made  at  the  direct 
inoculation  of  small-pox.  In  some  historical  and  medical 
Researches  on  Vaccine,  published  in  1803,  Husson  relates  that 
the  King  of  England,  wishing  to  have  the  members  of  his- 
family  inoculated,  began  by  having  the  method  tried  on  six 


406  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

criminals  condemned  to  death  ;  they  were  all  saved ,  and  the 
Eoyal  Family  submitted  to  inoculation. 

There  is  undoubtedly  a  beautiful  aspect  of  that  idea  of 
utilizing  the  fate  of  a  criminal  for  the  cause  of  Humanity.  But 
in  our  modern  laws  no  such  liberty  is  left  to  Justice,  which 
has  no  power  to  invent  new  punishments,  or  to  enter  into  a 
bargain  with  a  condemned  criminal. 

Before  his  departure  from  Arbois,  Pasteur  encountered  fresh 
and  unforeseen  obstacles.  The  successful  opposition  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Meudon  had  inspired  those  of  St.  Cloud,  Ville 
d'Avray,  Vaucresson,  Marnes,  and  Garches  with  the  idea  of 
resisting  in  their  turn  the  installation  of  Pasteur's  kennels  at 
Villeneuve  I'Etang.  People  spoke  of  public  danger,  of  children 
exposed  to  meet  ferocious  rabid  dogs  wandering  loose  about 
the  park,  of  popular  Sundays  spoilt,  picnickers  disturbed, 
etc. ,  etc. 

A  former  pupil  of  Pasteur's  at  the  Strasburg  Faculty,  M. 
Christen,  now  a  Town  Councillor  at  Vaucresson,  warned 
Pasteur  of  all  this  excitement,  adding  that  he  personally  was 
ready  to  do  his  best  to  calm  the  terrors  of  his  townspeople. 

Pasteur  answered,  thanking  him  for  his  efforts.  "  .  .  .1 
shall  be  back  in  Paris  on  October  24,  and  on  the  morning  of 
the  twenty-fifth  and  following  days  I  shall  be  pleased  to  see 
any  one  desiring  information  on  the  subject.  .  .  .  But  you 
may  at  once  assure  your  frightened  neighbours,  Sir,  that  there 
will  be  no  mad  dogs  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  but  only  dogs  made 
refractory  to  rabies.  Not  having  enough  room  in  my  labora- 
tory, I  am  actually  obliged  to  quarter  on  various  veterinary 
surgeons  those  dogs,  which  I  should  like  to  enclose  in  covered 
kennels,  quite  safely  secured,  you  may  be  sure." 

Pasteur,  writing  about  this  to  his  son,  could  not  help  saying, 
"  Months  of  fine  weather  have  been  wasted!  This  will  keep 
my  plans  back  almost  a  year." 

Little  by  little,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  which  burst  out  now 
and  again,  calm  was  again  re-established.  French  good  sense 
and  appreciation  of  great  things  got  the  better  of  the  struggle ; 
in  January,  1885,  Pasteur  was  able  to  go  to  Villeneuve  I'Etang 
to  superintend  the  arrangements.  The  old  stables  were  turned 
into  an  immense  kennel,  paved  with  asphalte.  A  wide  passage 
went  from  one  end  to  the  other,  on  each  side  of  which  accom- 
modation for  sixty  dogs  was  arranged  behind  a  double  barrier 
of  wire  netting. 


1884—1885  407 

The  subject  of  hydrophobia  goes  back  to  the  remotest 
antiquity;  one  of  Homer's  warriors  calls  Hector  a  mad  dog. 
The  supposed  allusions  to  it  to  be  found  in  Hippocrates  are  of 
the  vaguest,  but  Aristotle  is  quite  explicit  when  speaking  of 
canine  rabies  and  of  its  transmission  from  one  animal  to  the 
other  through  bites.  He  gives  expression,  however,  to  the 
singular  opinion  that  man  is  not  subject  to  it.  More  than 
three  hundred  years  later  we  come  to  Celsus,  who  describes 
this  disease,  unknown  or  unnoticed  until  then.  "The 
patient,"  said  Celsus,  "  is  tortured  at  the  same  time  by  thirst 
and  by  an  invincible  repulsion  towards  water."  He  counselled 
cauterization  of  the  wound  with  a  red-hot  iron  and  also  with 
various  caustics  and  corrosives. 

Pliny  the  Elder,  a  worthy  precursor  of  village  quacks,  recom- 
mended the  livers  of  mad  dogs  as  a  cure;  it  was  not  a  suc- 
cessful one.  Galen,  who  opposed  this,  had  a  no  less  singular 
recipe,  a  compound  of  cray-fish  eyes.  Later,  the  shrine  of 
St.  Hubert  in  Belgium  was  credited  with  mkaculous  cures; 
this  superstition  is  still  extant. 

Sea  bathing,  unknown  in  France  until  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIV,  became  a  fashionable  cure  for  hydrophobia,  Dieppe  sands 
being  supposed  to  offer  wonderful  curing  properties. 

In  1780  a  prize  was  offered  for  the  best  method  of  treating 
hydrophobia,  and  won  by  a  pamphlet  entitled  Dissertation  sur 
la  Rage,  written  by  a  surgeon-major  of  the  name  of  Le  Eoux. 

This  very  sensible  treatise  concluded  by  recommending 
cauterization,  now  long  forgotten,  instead  of  the  various  quack 
remedies  which  had  so  long  been  in  vogue,  and  the  use  of 
butter  of  antimony. 

Le  Eoux  did  not  allude  in  his  paper  to  certain  tenacious  and 
cruel  prejudices,  which  had  caused  several  hydrophobic  persons, 
or  persons  merely  suspected  of  hydroprobia,  to  be  killed  like 
wild  beasts,  shot,  poisoned,  strangled,  or  suffocated. 

It  was  supposed  in  some  places  that  hydrophobia  could  be 
transmitted  through  the  mere  contact  of  the  saliva  or  even  by 
the  breath  of  the  victims ;  people  who  had  been  bitten  were  in 
terror  of  what  might  be  done  to  them.  A  girl,  bitten  by  a 
mad  dog  and  taken  to  the  Hotel  Dieu  Hospital  on  May  8, 
1780,  begged  that  she  might  not  be  suffocated  ! 

Those  dreadful  occurrences  must  have  been  only  too  frequent, 
for,  in  1810,  a  philosopher  asked  the  Government  to  enact  a 
Bill  in  the  following  terms  :  "It  is  forbidden,  under  pain  of 


408  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

death,  to  strangle,  suffocate,  bleed  to  death,  or  in  any  other  way 
murder  individuals  suffering  from  rabies,  hydrophobia,  or  any 
disease  causing  fits,  convulsions,  furious  and  dangerous  mad- 
ness ;  all  necessary  precautions  against  them  being  taken  by 
families  or  public  authorities." 

In  1819,  newspapers  related  the  death  of  an  unfortunate 
hydrophobe,  smothered  between  two  mattresses;  it  was  said  a 
propos  of  this  murder  that  "it  is  the  doctor's  duty  to  repeat 
that  this  disease  cannot  be  transmitted  from  man  to  man,  and 
that  there  is  therefore  no  danger  in  nursing  hydrophobia 
patients."  Though  old  and  fantastic  remedies  were  still  in 
vogue  in  remote  country  places,  cauterization  was  the  most 
frequently  employed ;  if  the  wounds  were  somewhat  deep,  it 
was  recommended  to  use  long,  sharp  and  pointed  needles,  and 
to  push  them  well  in,  even  if  the  wound  w^as  on  the  face. 

One  of  Pasteur's  childish  recollections  (it  happened  in 
October,  1831)  was  the  impression  of  terror  produced  through- 
out the  Jura  by  the  advent  of  a  rabid  wolf  who  went  biting 
men  and  beasts  on  his  way.  Pasteur  had  seen  an  Arboisian  of 
the  name  of  Nicole  being  cauterized  with  a  red-hot  iron  at 
the  smithy  near  his  father's  house.  The  persons  who  had 
been  bitten  on  the  hands  and  head  succumbed  to  hydro- 
phobia, some  of  them  amidst  horrible  sufferings;  there  were 
eight  victims  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  Nicole  was 
saved.  For  years  the  whole  region  remained  in  dread  of  that 
mad  wolf. 

The  long  period  of  incubation  encouraged  people  to  hope 
that  some  preventive  means  might  be  found,  instead  of  the 
painful  operation  of  cauterization ;  some  doctors  attempted 
inoculating  another  poison,  a  viper's  venom  for  instance,  to 
neutralize  the  rabic  virus — needless  to  say  with  fatal  results. 
In  1852  a  reward  was  promised  by  the  Government  to  the 
finder  of  a  remedy  against  hydrophobia ;  all  the  old  quackeries 
came  to  light  again,  even  Galen's  remedy  of  cray-fish  eyes  ! 

Bouchardat,  who  had  to  report  to  the  Academy  on  these 
remedies,  considered  them  of  no  value  whatever;  his  con- 
clusion was  that  cauterization  was  the  only  prophylactic  treat- 
ment of  hydrophobia. 

Such  was  also  Bouley's  opinion,  eighteen  years  later,  when 
he  wrote  that  the  object  to  keep  in  view  was  the  quickest 
possible  destruction  of  the  tissues  touched  by  rabietic  saliva. 
Failing  an  iron  heated  to  a  light  red  heat,  or  the  sprinkling  of 


1884—1885  409 

gunpowder  over  the  wound  and  setting  a  match  to  it,  he  recom- 
mended caustics,  such  as  nitric  acid,  sulphuric  acid,  hydro- 
chloric acid,  potassa  fusa,  butter  of  antimony,  corrosive  sub- 
limate, and  nitrate  of  silver. 

Thus,  after  centuries  had  passed,  and  numberless  remedies 
had  been  tried,  no  progress  had  been  made,  and  nothing  better 
had  been  found  than  cauterization,  as  indicated  by  Celsus  in 
the  first  century. 

As  to  the  origin  of  rabies,  it  remained  unknown  and  was 
erroneously  attributed  to  divers  causes.  Spontaneity  was  still 
believed  in.  Bouley  himself  did  not  absolutely  reject  the  idea 
of  it,  for  he  said  in  1870  :  "  In  the  immense  majority  of  cases, 
this  disease  proceeds  from  contagion;  out  of  1,000  rabid  dogs, 
999  at  least  owe  their  condition  to  inoculation  by  a  bite." 

Pasteur  was  anxious  to  uproot  this  fallacy,  as  also  another 
very  serious  error,  vigorously  opposed  by  Bouley,  by  M. 
Nocard,  and  by  another  veterinary  surgeon  in  a  Manual  on 
Rabies,  published  in  1882,  and  still  as  tenacious  as  most  pre- 
judices, viz.,  that  the  word  hydrophobia  is  synonymous  with' 
rabies.  The  rabid  dog  is  not  hydrophobe,  he  does  not  abhor 
water.  The  word  is  applicable  to  rabid  human  beings,  but  is 
false  concerning  rabid  dogs. 

Many  people  in  the  country,  constantly  seeing  Pasteur's 
name  associated  with  the  word  rabies,  fancied  that  he  was  a 
consulting  veterinary  surgeon,  and  pestered  him  with  letters 
full  of  questions.  What  was  to  be  done  to  a  dog  whose  manner 
seemed  strange,  though  there  was  no  evidence  of  a  suspicious 
bite?  Should  he  be  shot?  "  No,"  answered  Pasteur,  "  shut 
him  up  securely,  and  he  will  soon  die  if  he  is  really  mad," 
Some  dog  owners  hesitated  to  destroy  a  dog  manifestly  bitten 
by  a  mad  dog.  "It  is  such  a  good  dog!  "  "The  law  is 
absolute,"  answered  Pasteur ;  "  every  dog  bitten  by  a  mad  dog 
must  be  destroyed  at  once."  And  it  irritated  him  that  village 
mayors  should  close  their  eyes  to  the  non-observance  of  the  law, 
and  thus  contribute  to  a  recrudescence  of  rabies. 

Pasteur  wasted  his  precious  time  answering  all  those  letters. 
On  March  28,  1885,  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Jules  Vercel — 

"Alas!  we  shall  not  be  able  to  go  to  Arbois  for  Easter;  I 
shall  be  busy  for  some  time  settling  down,  or  rather  settling 
my  dogs  down  at  Yilleneuve  I'Etang.  I  also  have  some  new 
experiments  on  rabies  on  hand  which  will  take  some  months. 


410  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

I  am  demonstrating  this  year  that  dogs  can  be  vaccinated,  or 
made  refractory  to  rabies  after  they  have  been  bitten  by  mad 
dogs. 

' '  I  have  not  yet  dared  to  treat  human  beings  after  bites  from 
rabid  dogs ;  but  the  time  is  not  far  off,  and  I  am  much  inchned 
to  begin  by  myself — inoculating  myself  v^ith  rabies,  and  then 
arresting  the  consequences ;  for  I  am  beginning  to  feel  very 
sure  of  my  results." 

Pasteur  gave  more  details  three  days  later,  in  a  letter  to  his 
son,  then  Secretary  of  the  French  Embassy  at  the  Quirinal — 

"  The  experiments  before  the  Kabies  Commission  were 
resumed  on  March  10 ;  they  are  now  being  carried  out,  and 
the  Commission  has  already  held  six  sittings ;  the  seventh  will 
take  place  to-day. 

"  As  I  only  submit  to  it  results  which  I  look  upon  as 
acquired,  this  gives  me  a  surplus  of  work  to  do ;  for  those 
control  experiments  are  added  to  those  I  am  now  carrying  out. 
For  I  am  continuing  my  researches,  trying  to  discover  new 
principles,  and  hardening  myself  by  habit  and  by  increased 
conviction  in  order  to  attempt  preventive  inoculations  on  man 
after  a  bite. 

"The  Commission's  experiments  have  led  to  no  result  so 
far,  for,  as  you  know,  weeks  have  to  pass  before  any  results 
occur.  But  no  untoward  incident  has  occurred  up  to  now  ;  and 
if  all  continues  equally  well,  the  Commission's  second  report 
will  be  as  favorable  as  that  of  last  year,  which  left  nothing  to 
be  desired. 

"  I  am  equally  satisfied  with  my  new  experiments  in  this 
difficult  study.  Perhaps  practical  application  on  a  large  scale 
may  not  be  far  off.   ..." 

In  May,  everything  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang  was  ready  for  the 
reception  of  sixty  dogs.  Fifty  of  them,  already  made  refrac- 
tory to  bites  or  rabic  inoculation,  were  successively  accommo- 
dated in  the  immense  kennel,  where  each  had  his  cell  and  his 
experiment  number.  They  had  been  made  refractory  by  being 
inoculated  with  fragments  of  medulla,  which  had  hung  for  a 
fortnight  in  a  phial ,  and  of  which  the  virulence  was  extin- 
guished, after  which  further  inoculations  had  been  made, 
gradually  increasing  in  virulence  until  the  highest  degree  of  it 
had  again  been  reached. 

All  those  dogs,  which  were  to  be  periodically  taken  back  to 
Paris  for  inoculations  or  bite  tests,  in  order  to  see  what  was 


1884—1885  411 

the  duration  of  the  immunity  conferred,  were  stray  dogs  picked 
up  by  the  pohce.  They  were  of  various  breeds,  and  showed 
every  variety  of  character,  some  of  them  gentle  and  affectionate, 
others  vicious  and  growling,  some  confiding,  some  shrinking, 
as  if  the  recollection  of  chloroform  and  the  laboratory  was  dis- 
agreeable to  them.  They  showed  some  natural  impatience  of 
their  enforced  captivity,  only  interrupted  by  a  short  daily  run. 
One  of  them,  however,  was  promoted  to  the  post  of  house- 
dog, and  loosened  every  night ;  he  excited  much  envy  among 
his  congeners.  The  dogs  were  very  well  cared  for  by  a  retired 
gendarme,  an  excellent  man  of  the  name  of  Pernin. 

A  lover  of  animals  might  have  drawn  an  interesting  contrast 
between  the  fate  of  those  laboratory  dogs,  living  and  dying  for 
the  good  of  humanity,  and  that  of  the  dogs  buried  in  the  neigh- 
bouring dogs'  cemetery  at  Bagatelle,  founded  by  Sir  Eichard 
Wallace,  the  great  English  philanthropist.  Here  lay  toy  dogs, 
lap  dogs,  drawing-room  dogs,  cherished  and  coddled  during 
their  useless  lives,  and  luxuriously  buried  after  their  useless 
deaths,  while  the  dead  bodies  of  the  others  went  to  the 
knacker's  yard. 

Eabbit  hutches  and  guinea-pig  cages  leaned  against  the  dogs' 
palace.  Pasteur,  having  seen  to  the  comfort  of  his  animals, 
now  thought  of  himself ;  it  was  frequently  necessary  that  he 
should  come  to  spend  two  or  three  days  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang. 
The  ofl&cial  architect  thought  of  repairing  part  of  the  little 
palace  of  Villeneuve,  which  was  in  a  very  bad  state  of  decay. 
But  Pasteur  preferred  to  have  some  rooms  near  the  stables  put 
into  repair,  which  had  formerly  been  used  for  non-commis- 
sioned officers  of  the  Cent  Gardes ;  there  was  less  to  do  to  them, 
and  the  position  was  convenient.  The  roof,  windows,  and 
doors  were  renovated,  and  some  cheap  paper  hung  on  the  walls 
inside.  "This  is  certainly  not  luxurious!"  exclaimed  an 
astonished  millionaire,  who  came  to  see  Pasteur  one  day  on 
his  way  to  his  own  splendid  villa  at  Marly. 

On  May  29  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  son — 

' '  I  thought  I  should  have  done  with  rabies  by  the  end  of 
April ;  I  must  postpone  my  hopes  till  the  end  of  July.  Yet 
I  have  not  remained  stationary ;  but,  in  these  difficult  studies, 
one  is  far  from  the  goal  as  long  as  the  last  word,  the  last 
decisive  proof  is  not  acquired.  What  I  aspire  to  is  the  pos- 
sibility of  treating  a  man  after  a  bite  with  no  fear  of  accidents. 

"I  have  never  had  so  many  subjects  of  experiment  on  hand — 


4ia  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

sixty  dogs  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  forty  at  Eollin,  ten  at  Fregis' , 
fifteen  at  Bourrel's,  and  I  deplore  having  no  more  kennels  at 
my  disposal. 

"  What  do  you  say  of  the  Rue  Pasteur  in  the  large  city  of 
Lille?     The  news  has  given  me  very  great  pleasure." 

What  Pasteur  briefly  called  "  Eollin  "  in  this  letter  was  the 
former  Lycee  Rollin,  the  old  buildings  of  which  had  been 
transformed  into  outhouses  for  his  laboratory.  Large  cages 
had  been  set  up  in  the  old  courtyard,  and  the  place  was  like  a 
farm,  with  its  population  of  hens,  rabbits,  and  guinea-pigs. 

Two  series  of  experiments  were  being  carried  out  on  those 
125  dogs.  The  first  consisted  in  making  dogs  refractory  to 
rabies  by  preventive  inoculations ;  the  second  in  preventing 
the  onset  of  rabies  in  dogs  bitten  or  subjected  to  inoculation. 


CHAPTEE    XIII 

1885—1888 

Pasteur  had  the  power  of  concentrating  his  thoughts  to 
such  a  degree  that  he  often ,  when  absorbed  in  one  idea ,  became 
absolutely  unconscious  of  what  took  place  around  him.  At 
one  of  the  meetings  of  the  Academie  Frangaise,  whilst  the 
Dictionary  was  being  discussed,  he  scribbled  the  following  note 
on  a  stray  sheet  of  paper — 

"  I  do  not  know  how  to  hide  my  ideas  from  those  who  work 
with  me ;  still,  I  wish  I  could  have  kept  those  I  am  going  to 
express  a  little  longer  to  myself.  The  experiments  have 
already  begun  which  will  decide  them. 

"  It  concerns  rabies,  but  the  results  might  be  general. 

' '  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  virus  which  is  considered 
rabic  may  be  accompanied  by  a  substance  which,  by  impregnat- 
ing the  nervous  system,  would  make  it  unsuitable  for  the 
culture  of  the  microbe.  Thence  vaccinal  immunity.  If  that 
is  so,  the  theory  might  be  a  general  one  :  it  would  be  a 
stupendous  discovery. 

"  I  have  just  met  Chamberland  in  the  Eue  Gay-Lussac,  and 
explained  to  him  this  view  and  my  experiments.  He  was  much 
struck,  and  asked  my  permission  to  make  at  once  on  anthrax 
the  experiment  I  am  about  to  make  on  rabies  as  soon  as  the 
dog  and  the  culture  rabbits  are  dead.  Eoux,  the  day  before 
yesterday,  was  equally  struck. 

"  Academie  Frangaise,  Thursday,  January  29,  1885." 

Could  that  vaccinal  substance  associated  with  the  rabic  virus 
be  isolated?  In  the  meanwhile  a  main  fact  was  acquired, 
that  of  preventive  inoculation,  since  Pasteur  was  sure  of  his 
series  of  dogs  rendered  refractory  to  rabies  after  a  bite.  Months 
were  going  by  without  bringing  an  answer  to  the  question 
"Why?"  of  the  antirabic  vaccination,  as  mysterious  as  the 
*'  Why  ?  "  of  Jennerian  vaccination. 


414  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

On  Monday,  July  6,  Pasteur  saw  a  little  Alsatian  boy, 
Joseph  Meister,  enter  his  laboratory,  accompanied  by  his 
mother.  He  was  only  nine  years  old,  and  had  been  bitten 
two  days  before  by  a  mad  dog  at  Meissengott,  near  Schlestadt. 

The  child,  going  alone  to  school  by  a  little  by-road,  had 
been  attacked  by  a  furious  dog  and  thrown  to  the  ground.  Too 
small  to  defend  himself,  he  had  only  thought  of  covering  his 
face  with  his  hands.  A  bricklayer,  seeing  the  scene  from  a 
distance,  arrived,  and  succeeded  in  beating  the  dog  off  with  an 
iron  bar;  he  picked  up  the  boy,  covered  with  blood  and  saliva. 
The  dog  went  back  to  his  master,  Theodore  Vone,  a  grocer  at 
Meissengott,  whom  he  bit  on  the  arm.  Vone  seized  a  gun  and 
shot  the  animal,  whose  stomach  was  found  to  be  full  of  hay, 
straw,  pieces  of  wood,  etc.  ^A^len  little  Meister's  parents 
heard  all  these  details  they  went,  full  of  anxiety,  to  consult  Dr. 
Weber,  at  Ville,  that  same  evening.  After  cauterizing  the 
wounds  with  carbolic.  Dr.  Weber  advised  Mme.  Meister  to 
start  for  Paris,  where  she  could  relate  the  facts  to  one  who  was 
not  a  physician,  but  who  would  be  the  best  judge  of  what  could 
be  done  in  such  a  serious  case.  Theodore  Vone,  anxious  on 
his  own  and  on  the  child's  account,  decided  to  come  also. 

Pasteur  reassured  him ;  his  clothes  had  wiped  off  the  dog's 
saliva,  and  his  shirt-sleeve  was  intact.  He  might  safely  go 
back  to  Alsace,  and  he  promptly  did  so. 

Pasteur's  emotion  was  great  at  the  sight  of  the  fourteen 
wounds  of  the  little  boy,  who  suffered  so  much  that  he  could 
hardly  walk.  What  should  he  do  for  this  child?  could  he  risk 
the  preventive  treatment  which  had  been  constantly  successful 
on  his  dogs?  Pasteur  was  divided  between  his  hopes  and  his 
scruples,  painful  in  their  acuteness.  Before  deciding  on  a 
course  of  action,  he  made  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  this 
poor  woman  and  her  child,  alone  in  Paris,  and  gave  them  an 
appointment  for  5  o'clock,  after  the  Institute  meeting.  He  did 
not  wish  to  attempt  anything  without  having  seen  Vulpian 
and  talked  it  over  with  him.  Since  the  Eabies  Commission 
had  been  constituted,  Pasteur  had  formed  a  growing  esteem 
for  the  great  judgment  of  Vulpian,  who,  in  his  lectures  on  the 
general  and  comparative  physiology  of  the  nervous  system, 
had  already  mentioned  the  profit  to  human  clinics  to  be  drawn 
from  experimenting  on  animals. 

His  was  a  most  prudent  mind,  always  seeing  all  the  aspects 
of  a  problem.     The  man  was  worthy  of  the  scientist  :  he  was 


1885—1888  415 

absolutely  straightforward,  and  of  a  discreet  and  active  kind- 
ness. He  was  passionately  fond  of  work,  and  had  recourse  to 
it  when  smitten  by  a  deep  sorrow. 

Vulpian  expressed  the  opinion  that  Pasteur's  experiments 
on  dogs  were  sufficiently  conclusive  to  authorize  him  to  foresee 
the  same  success  in  human  pathology.  Why  not  try  this  treat- 
ment? added  the  professor,  usually  so  reserved.  Was  there 
any  other  efficacious  treatment  against  hydrophobia?  If  at 
least  the  cauterizations  had  been  made  with  a  red-hot  iron  ! 
but  what  was  the  good  of  carbolic  acid  twelve  hours  after  the 
accident.  If  the  almost  certain  danger  which  threatened  the 
boy  were  weighed  against  the  chances  of  snatching  him  from 
death,  Pasteur  would  see  that  it  was  more  than  a  right,  that 
it  was  a  duty  to  apply  antirabic  inoculation  to  little  Meister. 

This  was  also  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Grancher,  whom  Pasteur 
consulted.  M.  Grancher  worked  at  the  laboratory ;  he  and 
Dr.  Straus  might  claim  to  be  the  two  first  French  physicians 
who  took  up  the  study  of  bacteriology ;  these  novel  studies 
fascinated  him,  and  he  was  drawn  to  Pasteur  by  the  deepest 
admiration  and  by  a  strong  affection,  which  Pasteur  thoroughly 
reciprocated. 

Vulpian  and  M.  Grancher  examined  little  Meister  in  the 
evening,  and,  seeing  the  number  of  bites,  some  of  which,  on 
one  hand  especially,  were  very  deep,  they  decided  on  perform- 
ing the  first  inoculation  immediately ;  the  substance  chosen 
was  fourteen  days  old  and  had  quite  lost  its  virulence  :  it  was 
to  be  followed  by  further  inoculations  gradually  increasing  in 
strength. 

It  was  a  very  slight  operation,  a  mere  injection  into  the 
side  (by  means  of  a  Pravaz  syringe)  of  a  few  drops  of  a  liquid 
prepared  with  some  fragments  of  medulla  oblongata.  The 
child,  who  cried  very  much  before  the  operation,  soon  dried 
his  tears  when  he  found  the  slight  prick  was  all  that  he  had 
to  undergo. 

Pasteur  had  had  a  bedroom  comfortably  arranged  for  the 
mother  and  child  in  the  old  Kollin  College,  and  the  little  boy 
was  very  happy  amidst  the  various  animals — chickens,  rabbits, 
white  mice,  guinea-pigs,  etc.  ;  he  begged  and  easily  obtained 
of  Pasteur  the  life  of  several  of  the  youngest  of  them. 

"  All  is  going  well,"  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  son-in-law  on 
July  11  :  "  the  child  sleeps  well,  has  a  good  appetite,  and  the 
inoculated  matter  is  absorbed  into  the  system  from  one  day 


416  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

to  another  without  leaving  a  trace.  It  is  true  that  I  have  not 
yet  come  to  the  test  inoculations,  which  will  take  place  on 
Tuesday,  Wednesday  and  Thursday.  If  the  lad  keeps  well 
during  the  three  following  weeks,  I  think  the  experiment  will 
be  safe  to  succeed.  I  shall  send  the  child  and  his  mother  back 
to  Meissengott  (near  Schlestadt)  in  any  case  on  August  1, 
giving  these  good  people  detailed  instruction  as  to  the  observa- 
tions they  are  to  record  for  me.  I  shall  make  no  statement 
before  the  end  of  the  vacation." 

But,  as  the  inoculations  were  becoming  more  virulent, 
Pasteur  became  a  prey  to  anxiety  :  "  My  dear  children,"  wrote 
Mme.  Pasteur,  "your  father  has  had  another  bad  night ;  he  is 
dreading  the  last  inoculations  on  the  child.  And  yet  there  can 
be  no  drawing  back  now !  The  boy  continues  in  perfect 
health." 

Eenewed  hopes  were  expressed  in  the  following  letter  from 
Pasteur — 

"My  dear  Eene,  I  think  great  things  are  coming  to  pass. 
Joseph  Meister  has  Just  left  the  laboratory.  The  three  last 
inoculations  have  left  some  pink  marks  under  the  skin,  gradu- 
ally widening  and  not  at  all  tender.  There  is  some  action, 
which  is  becoming  more  intense  as  we  approach  the  final 
inoculation,  which  will  take  place  on  Thursday,  July  16.  The 
lad  is  very  well  this  morning,  and  has  slept  well,  though 
slightly  restless ;  he  has  a  good  appetite  and  no  feverishness. 
He  had  a  slight  hysterical  attack  yesterday." 

The  letter  ended  with  an  affectionate  invitation.  "  Perhaps 
one  of  the  great  medical  facts  of  the  century  is  going  to  take 
place ;  you  would  regret  not  having  seen  it !  " 

Pasteur  was  going  through  a  succession  of  hopes,  fears, 
anguish,  and  an  ardent  yearning  to  snatch  little  Meister  from 
death;  he  could  no  longer  work.  At  nights,  feverish  visions 
came  to  him  of  this  child  whom  he  had  seen  playing  in  the 
garden,  suffocating  in  the  mad  struggles  of  hydrophobia,  like 
the  dying  child  he  had  seen  at  the  Hopital  Trousseau  in  1880. 
Vainly  his  experimental  genius  assured  him  that  the  virus  of 
that  most  terrible  of  diseases  was  about  to  be  vanquished,  that 
humanity  was  about  to  be  delivered  from  this  dread  horror — 
his  human  tenderness  was  stronger  than  all,  his  accustomed 
ready  sympathy  for  the  sufferings  and  anxieties  of  others  was 
for  the  nonce  centred  in  "  the  dear  lad." 
The   treatment   lasted   ten   days;    Meister    was    inoculated 


1885—1888  417 

twelve  times.  The  virulence  of  the  medulla  used  was  tested  by 
trephinings  on  rabbits,  and  proved  to  be  gradually  stronger. 
Pasteur  even  inoculated  on  July  16,  at  11  a.m.,  some  medulla 
only  one  day  old,  bound  to  give  hydrophobia  to  rabbits  after 
only  seven  days'  incubation ;  it  was  the  surest  test  of  the 
immunity  and  preservation  due  to  the  treatment. 

Cured  from  his  wounds,  delighted  with  all  he  saw,  gaily 
running  about  as  if  he  had  been  in  his  own  Alsatian  farm, 
little  Meister,  whose  blue  eyes  now  showed  neither  fear  nor 
shyness,  merrily  received  the  last  inoculation;  in  the  evening, 
after  claiming  a  kiss  from  "  Dear  Monsieur  Pasteur,"  as  he 
called  him,  he  went  to  bed  and  slept  peacefully.  Pasteur  spent 
a  terrible  night  of  insomnia ;  in  those  slow  dark  hours  of  night 
when  all  vision  is  distorted,  Pasteur,  losing  sight  of  the 
accumulation  of  experiments  which  guaranteed  his  success, 
imagined  that  the  little  boy  would  die. 

The  treatment  being  now  completed,  Pasteur  left  Uttle 
Meister  to  the  care  of  Dr.  Grancher  (the  lad  was  not  to  return 
to  Alsace  until  July  27)  and  consented  to  take  a  few  days'  rest. 
He  spent  them  with  his  daughter  in  a  quiet,  almost  deserted 
country  place  in  Burgundy,  but  without  however  finding  much 
restfulness  in  the  beautiful  peaceful  scenery ;  he  lived  in  con- 
stant expectation  of  Dr.  Grancher's  daily  telegram  or  letter 
containing  news  of  Joseph  Meister. 

By  the  time  he  went  to  the  Jura,  Pasteur's  fears  had  almost 
disappeared.  He  wrote  from  Arbois  to  his  son  August  3, 
1885  :  "  Very  good  news  last  night  of  the  bitten  lad.  I  am 
looking  forward  with  great  hopes  to  the  time  when  I  can  draw  a 
conclusion.  It  will  be  thirty-one  days  to-morrow  since  he  was 
bitten." 

On  August  20,  six  weeks  before  the  new  elections  of  Deputies, 
Leon  Say,  Pasteur's  colleague  at  the  Academic  Francaise, 
wrote  to  him  that  many  Beauce  agricultors  were  anxious  to  put 
his  name  down  on  the  hst  of  candidates,  as  a  recognition  of  the 
services  rendered  by  science.  A  few  months  before,  Jules 
Simon  had  thought  Pasteur  might  be  elected  as  a  Life  Senator, 
but  Pasteur  had  refused  to  be  convinced.  He  now  replied  to 
Leon  Say — 

Your  proposal  touches  me  very  much  and  it  would  be 
agreeable  to  me  to  owe  a  Deputy's  mandate  to  electors,  several 
of  whom  have  applied  the  results  of  my  investigations.     But 

E   E 


418  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

politics  frighten  me  and  I  have  already  refused  a  candidature 
in  the  Jura  and  a  seat  in  the  Senate  in  the  course  of  this  year. 
"I  might  be  tempted  perhaps,  if  I  no  longer  felt  active 
enough  for  my  laboratory  work.  But  I  still  feel  equal  to 
further  researches,  and  on  my  return  to  Paris,  I  shall  be 
organizing  a  '  service  '  against  rabies  which  will  absorb  all  my 
energies.  I  now  possess  a  very  perfect  method  of  prophylaxis 
against  that  terrible  disease,  a  method  equally  adapted  to 
human  beings  and  to  dogs,  and  by  which  your  much  afflicted 
Department  will  be  one  of  the  first  to  benefit. 

' '  Before  my  departure  for  Jura  I  dared  to  treat  a  poor 
little  nine-year-old  lad  w^hose  mother  brought  him  to  me  from 
Alsace,  where  he  had  been  attacked  on  the  4th  ult.,  and 
bitten  on  the  thighs,  legs,  and  hand  in  such  a  manner 
that  hydrophobia  would  have  been  inevitable.  He  remains 
in  perfect  health." 

Whilst  many  political  speeches  were  being  prepared,  Pasteur 
was  thinking  over  a  literary  speech.  He  had  been  requested  by 
the  Academic  FranQaise  to  welcome  Joseph  Bertrand,  elected 
in  place  of  J.  B.  Dumas — the  eulogium  of  a  scientist,  spoken 
by  one  scientist,  himself  welcomed  by  another  scientist.  This 
was  an  unusual  programme  for  the  Academic  Fran^aise,  perhaps 
too  unusual  in  the  eyes  of  Pasteur,  who  did  not  think  himself 
worthy  of  speaking  in  the  name  of  the  Academie.  Such  was 
his  modesty ;  he  forgot  that  amongst  the  savants  who  had  been 
members  of  the  Academie,  several,  such  as  Fontenelle,  Cuvier, 
J.  B.  Dumas,  etc. ,  had  published  immortal  pages,  and  that  some 
extracts  from  his  own  works  would  one  day  become  classical. 

The  vacation  gave  him  time  to  read  over  the  writings  of 
his  beloved  teacher,  and  also  to  study  the  life  and  works  of 
Joseph  Bertrand,  already  his  colleague  at  the  Academic  des 
Sciences. 

Bertrand's  election  had  been  simple  and  easy,  like  everything 
he  had  undertaken  since  his  birth.  It  seemed  as  if  a  good  fairy 
had  leant  over  his  cradle  and  whispered  to  him,  "Thou  shalt 
know  many  things,  without  having  had  to  learn  them."  It  is 
a  fact  that  he  could  read  without  having  held  a  book  in  his 
hands.  He  was  ill  and  in  bed  whilst  his  brother  Alexander 
was  being  taught  to  read  ;  he  listened  to  the  lessons  and  kept  the 
various  combinations  of  letters  in  his  mind.  When  he  became 
convalescent,  his  parents  brought  him  a  book  of  Natural  His- 
tory so  that  he  might  look  at  the  pictures.     He  took  the  volume 


1885—1888  419 

and  read  from  it  fluently  ;  he  was  not  five  years  old.  He  learnt 
the  elements  of  geometry  very  much  in  the  same  way. 

Pasteur  in  his  speech  thus  described  Joseph  Bertrand's  child- 
hood :  "  At  ten  years  old  you  were  already  celebrated ,  and  it  was 
prophesied  that  you  would  pass  at  the  head  of  the  list  into  the 
Ecole  Polytechnique  and  become  a  member  of  the  Academy  of 
Sciences?  No  one  doubted  this,  not  even  yourself.  You  were 
indeed  a  child  prodigy.  Sometimes  it  amused  you  to  hide  in  a 
class  of  higher  mathematics,  and  when  the  Professor  pro- 
pounded a  difficult  problem  that  no  one  could  solve,  one  of  the 
students  would  triumphantly  lift  you  in  his  arms,  stand  you  on 
a  chair  so  that  you  might  reach  the  board,  and  you  would  then 
give  the  required  solution  with  a  calm  assurance,  in  the  midst 
of  applause  from  the  professors  and  pupils." 

Pasteur,  whose  every  progress  had  been  painfully  acquired, 
admired  the  ease  with  which  Bertrand  had  passed  through  the 
first  stages  of  his  career.  At  an  age  when  marbles  and  india- 
rubber  balls  are  usually  an  important  interest,  Bertrand  walked 
merrily  to  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  to  attend  a  course  of  lectures 
by  Gay-Lussac.  A  few  hours  later,  he  might  be  seen  at  the 
Sorbonne,  listening  with  interest  to  Saint  Marc  Girardin,  the 
literary  moralist.  The  next  day,  he  would  go  to  a  lecture  on 
Comparative  Legislation  ;  never  was  so  young  a  child  seen  in 
such  serious  places.  He  borrowed  as  many  books  from  the 
Institute  library  as  Biot  hiinself ;  he  learnt  whole  passages  by 
heart,  merely  by  glancing  at  them.  He  became  a  doctor  es 
sciences  at  sixteen,  and  a  Member  of  the  Institute  at  thirty-four. 

Besides  his  personal  works — such  as  those  on  Analytic 
Mechanics,  which  place  him  in  the  very  first  rank — his  teach- 
ing had  been  brought  to  bear  during  forty  years  on  all  branches 
of  mathematics.  Bertrand's  life,  apparently  so  happy,  had 
been  saddened  by  the  irreparable  loss,  during  the  Commune, 
of  a  great  many  precious  notes,  letters,  and  manuscripts,  which 
had  been  burnt  with  the  house  where  he  had  left  them.  Dis- 
couraged by  this  ruin  of  ten  years'  work,  he  had  given  way  to  a 
tendency  to  writing  slight  popular  articles,  of  high  literary 
merit,  instead  of  continuing  his  deeper  scientific  work.  His 
eulogy  of  J.  B.  Dumas  was  not  quite  seriously  enthusiastic 
enough  to  please  Pasteur,  who  had  a  veritable  cult  for  the 
memory  of  his  old  teacher,  and  who  eagerly  grasped  this  oppor- 
tunity of  speaking  again  of  J.  B.  Dumas'  influence  on  himself, 
of  his  admirable  scientific  discoveries,  and  of  his  political  duties, 

E  E  2 


420  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

undertaken  in  the  hope  of  being  useful  to  Science,  but  often 
proving  a  source  of  disappointment. 

Pasteur  enjoyed  looking  back  on  the  beloved  memory  of 
J.  B.  Dumas,  as  he  sat  preparing  his  speech  in  his  study  at 
Arbois,  looking  out  on  the  familiar  landscape  of  his  childhood, 
where  the  progress  of  practical  science  v^-as  evidenced  by  the 
occasional  passing,  through  the  distant  pine  woods,  of  the  white 
smoke  of  the  Switzerland  express. 

When  in  his  laboratory  in  Paris,  Pasteur  hated  to  be  disturbed 
whilst  making  experiments  or  writing  out  notes  of  his  work. 
Any  visitor  was  unwelcome  ;  one  day  that  some  one  was  attempt- 
ing to  force  his  way  in,  M.  Eoux  was  amused  at  seeing 
Pasteur — vexed  at  being  disturbed  and  anxious  not  to  pain  the 
visitor — come  out  to  say  imploringly ,  "  Oh  !  not  now ,  please  ! 
I  am  too  busy  !  ' ' 

"When  Chamberland  and  I,"  writes  Dr.  Eoux,  "were 
engaged  in  an  interesting  occupation,  he  mounted  guard  before 
us,  and  when,  through  the  glazed  doors,  he  saw  people  coming, 
he  himself  would  go  and  meet  them  in  order  to  send  them  away. 
He  showed  so  artlessly  that  his  sole  thought  was  for  the  work, 
that  no  one  ever  could  be  offended." 

But,  at  Arbois,  where  he  only  spent  his  holidays,  he  did  not 
exercise  so  much  severity ;  any  one  could  come  in  who  liked. 
He  received  in  the  morning  a  constant  stream  of  visitors,  beg- 
ging for  advice,  recommendations,  interviews,  etc. 

"It  is  both  comical  and  touching,"  wrote  M.  Girard,  a  local 
journalist,  "  to  see  the  opinion  the  vineyard  labourers  have  of 
him.  These  good  people  have  heard  M.  Pasteur's  name  in 
connection  with  the  diseases  of  wine,  and  they  look  upon  him 
as  a  sort  of  wine  doctor.  If  they  notice  a  barrel  of  wine  getting 
sour,  they  knock  at  the  savant's  door,  bottle  in  hand ;  this  door 
is  never  closed  to  them.  Peasants  are  not  precise  in  their  lan- 
guage ;  they  do  not  know  how  to  begin  their  explanations  or 
bow  to  finish  them.  M.  Pasteur,  ever  calm  and  serious,  listens 
to  the  very  end,  takes  the  bottle  and  studies  it  at  his  leisure. 
A  week  later,  the  wine  is  'cured.'  " 

He  was  consulted  also  on  many  other  subjects — virus,  silk- 
worms, rabies,  cholera,  swine-fever,  etc.  ;  many  took  him  for  a 
physician.  Whilst  telling  them  of  their  mistake,  he  yet  did 
everything  he  could  for  them. 

During  this  summer  of  1885,  he  had  the  melancholy  joy  of 
seeing  a  bust  erected  in  the  village  of  Monay  to  the  memory  of 


1885—1888  421 

a  beloved  friend  of  his,  J.  J.  Perraud.  a  great  and  inspired 
sculptor,  who  had  died  in  1876.  Perraud,  whose  magnificent 
statue  of  Despair  is  now  at  the  Louvre ,  had  had  a  sad  life ,  and , 
on  his  lonely  death-bed  (he  was  a  widower,  with  no  children), 
Pasteur's  tender  sympathy  had  been  an  unspeakable  comfort. 
Pasteur  now  took  a  leading  part  in  the  celebration  of  his  friend's 
fame,  and  was  glad  to  speak  to  the  assembled  villagers  at  Monay 
of  the  great  and  disinterested  artist  who  had  been  born  in  their 
midst. 

On  his  return  to  Paris,  Pasteur  found  himself  obliged  to 
hasten  the  organization  of  a  "  service  ' '  for  the  preventive  treat- 
ment of  hydrophobia  after  a  bite.  The  Mayors  of  Villers-Farlay , 
in  the  Jura,  wrote  to  him  that,  on  October  14,  a  shepherd  had 
been  cruelly  bitten  by  a  rabid  dog. 

Six  little  shepherd  boys  were  watching  over  their  sheep  in 
a  meadow ;  suddenly  they  saw  a  large  dog  passing  along  the 
road,  with  hanging,  foaming  jaws. 

"  A  mad  dog  !  "  they  exclaimed.  The  dog,  seeing  the  chil- 
dren, left  the  road  and  charged  them  ;  they  ran  away  shrieking, 
but  the  eldest  of  them,  J.  B.  Jupille,  fourteen  years  of  age, 
bravely  turned  back  in  order  to  protect  the  flight  of  his  comrades. 
Armed  with  his  whip,  he  confronted  the  infuriated  animal, 
who  flew  at  him  and  seized  his  left  hand.  Jupille,  wrestling 
with  the  dog,  succeeded  in  kneeling  on  him,  and  forcing  its 
jaws  open  in  order  to  disengage  his  left  hand ;  in  so  doing,  his 
right  hand  was  seriously  bitten  in  its  turn ;  finally,  having  been 
able  to  get  hold  of  the  animal  by  the  neck,  Jupille  called  to  his 
little  brother  to  pick  up  his  whip,  which  had  fallen  during  the 
struggle,  and  securely  fastened  the  dog's  jaws  with  the  lash. 
He  then  took  his  wooden  sabot,  with  which  he  battered  the  dog's 
head,  after  which,  in  order  to  be  sure  that  it  could  do  no  further 
haxm,  he  dragged  the  body  down  to  a  little  stream  in  the 
meadow,  and  held  the  head  under  water  for  several  minutes. 
Death  being  now  certain ,  and  all  danger  removed  from  his  com- 
rades, Jupille  returned  to  Villers-Farlay. 

Whilst  the  boy's  wounds  were  being  bandaged,  the  dog's 
carcase  was  fetched,  and  a  necropsy  took  place  the  next  day. 
The  two  veterinary  surgeons  who  examined  the  body  had  not 
the  slightest  hesitation  in  declaring  that  the  dog  was  rabid. 

The  Mayor  of  Villers-Farlay,  who  had  been  to  see  Pasteur 
during  the  summer,  wrote  to  tell  him  that  this  lad  would  die 


422  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

a  victim  of  his  own  courage  unless  the  new  treatment  inter- 
vened. The  answer  came  immediately  :  Pasteur  declared  that, 
after  five  years'  study,  he  had  succeeded  in  making  dogs  refrac- 
tory to  rabies,  even  six  or  eight  days  after  being  bitten;  that 
he  had  only  once  yet  applied  his  method  to  a  human  being,  but 
that  once  with  success,  in  the  case  of  little  Meister,  and  that, 
if  Jupille's  family  consented,  the  boy  might  be  sent  to  him. 
' '  I  shall  keep  him  near  me  in  a  room  of  my  laboratory  ;  he  will 
be  watched  and  need  not  go  to  bed ;  he  will  merely  receive  a 
daily  prick,  not  more  painful  than  a  pin-prick." 

The  family,  on  hearing  this  letter,  came  to  an  immediate 
decision  ;  but,  between  the  day  when  he  was  bitten  and  Jupille's 
arrival  in  Paris,  six  whole  days  had  elapsed,  whilst  in  Meister's 
case  there  had  only  been  two  and  a  half ! 

Yet,  however  great  were  Pasteur's  fears  for  the  life  of  this 
tall  lad,  who  seemed  quite  surprised  when  congratulated  on  his 
courageous  conduct,  they  were  not  what  they  had  been  in  the 
first  instance — he  felt  much  greater  confidence. 

A  few  days  later,  on  October  26,  Pasteur  in  a  statement  at 
the  Academy  of  Sciences  described  the  treatment  followed  for 
Meister.  Three  months  and  three  days  had  passed,  and  the 
child  remained  perfectly  well.  Then  he  spoke  of  his  new 
attempt.     Vulpian  rose — 

"The  Academy  will  not  be  surprised,"  he  said,  "if,  as  a 
member  of  the  Medical  and  Surgical  Section,  I  ask  to  be  allowed 
to  express  the  feelings  of  admiration  inspired  in  me  by  M. 
Pasteur's  statement.  I  feel  certain  that  those  feelings  will  be 
shared  by  the  whole  of  the  medical  profession. 

"Hydrophobia,  that  dread  disease  against  which  all  thera- 
peutic measures  had  hitherto  failed,  has  at  last  found  a  remedy. 
M.  Pasteur,  who  has  been  preceded  by  no  one  in  this  path,  has 
been  led  by  a  series  of  investigations  unceasingly  carried  on 
for  several  years,  to  create  a  method  of  treatment,  by  means 
of  which  the  development  of  hydrophobia  can  infallibly  be  pre- 
vented in  a  patient  recently  bitten  by  a  rabid  dog.  I  say 
infallibly,  because,  after  what  I  have  seen  in  M.  Pasteur's 
laboratory,  I  do  not  doubt  the  constant  success  of  this  treat- 
ment when  it  is  put  into  full  practice  a  few  days  only  after  a 
rabic  bite. 

"  It  is  now  necessary  to  see  about  organizing  an  installation 
for  the  treatment  of  hydrophobia  by  M.  Pasteur's  method. 
Every  person  bitten  by  a  rabid  dog  must  be  given  the  oppor- 


1885—1888  423 

tunity  of  benefiting  by  this  great  discovery,  which  will  seal  the 
fame  of  our  illustrious  colleague  and  bring  glory  to  our  whole 
country." 

Pasteur  had  ended  his  reading  by  a  touching  description  of 
Jupille's  action,  leaving  the  Assembly  under  the  impression  of 
that  boy  of  fourteen,  sacrificing  himself  to  save  his  companions. 
An  Academician,  Baron  Larrey,  whose  authority  was  rendered 
all  the  greater  by  his  calmness,  dignity,  and  moderation,  rose 
to  speak.  After  acknowledging  the  importance  of  Pasteur's 
discovery,  Larrey  continued,  "  The  sudden  inspiration,  agility 
and  courage,  with  which  the  ferocious  dog  was  muzzled,  and 
thus  made  incapable  of  committing  further  injury  to 
bystanders,  .  .  .  such  an  act  of  bravery  deserves  to  be 
rewarded.  I  therefore  have  the  honour  of  begging  the 
Academic  des  Sciences  to  recommend  to  the  Acad^mie 
Fran^aise  this  young  shepherd,  who,  by  giving  such  a  generous 
example  of  courage  and  devotion,  has  well  deserved  a  Montyon 
prize." 

Bouley,  then  chairman  of  the  Academy,  rose  to  speak  in  his 
turn — 

' '  We  are  entitled  to  say  that  the  date  of  the  present  meeting 
will  remain  for  ever  memorable  in  the  history  of  medicine,  and 
glorious  for  French  science  ;  for  it  is  that  of  one  of  the  greatest 
steps  ever  accomplished  in  the  medical  order  of  things — a  pro- 
gress realized  by  the  discovery  of  an  efficacious  means  of  pre- 
ventive treatment  for  a  disease,  the  incurable  nature  of  which 
was  a  legacy  handed  down  by  one  century  to  another.  From 
this  day,  humanity  is  armed  with  a  means  of  fighting  the  fatal 
disease  of  hydrophobia  and  of  preventing  its  onset.  It  is  to  M. 
Pasteur  that  we  owe  this,  and  we  could  not  feel  too  much 
admiration  or  too  much  gratitude  for  the  efforts  on  his  part 
which  have  led  to  such  a  magnificent  result.   ..." 

Five  years  previously,  Bouley,  in  the  annual  combined  public 
meeting  of  the  five  Academies,  had  proclaimed  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  discovery  of  the  vaccination  of  anthrax.  But  on  hear- 
ing him  again  on  this  October  day,  in  1885,  his  colleagues 
could  not  but  be  painfully  struck  by  the  change  in  him  ;  his 
voice  was  weak,  his  face  thin  and  pale.  He  was  dying  of  an 
affection  of  the  heart,  and  quite  aware  of  it,  but  he  was  sus- 
tained by  a  wonderful  energy,  and  ready  to  forget  his  sufferings 
in  his  joy  at  the  thought  that  the  sum  of  human  sorrows  would 
be  diminished  by  Pasteur's  victory.     He  went  to  the  Academie 


424  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

de  Medecine  the  next  day  to  enjoy  the  echo  of  the  great  sitting 
of  the  Academic  des  Sciences.     He  died  on  November  29. 

The  chairman  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine,  M.  Jules 
Bergeron,  applauded  Pasteur's  Btatement  all  the  more  that  he 
too  had  publicly  deplored  (in  1862)  the  impotence  of  medical 
science  in  the  presence  of  this  cruel  disease. 

But  while  M.  Bergeron  shared  the  admiration  felt  by  Vulpian 
and  Dr.  Grancher  for  the  experiments  which  had  transformed 
the  rabic  virus  into  its  own  vaccine,  other  medical  men  were 
divided  into  several  categories  :  some  were  full  of  enthusiasm, 
others  reserved  their  opinion,  many  were  sceptical,  and  a  few 
even  positively  hostile. 

As  soon  as  Pasteur's  paper  was  published,  people  bitten  by 
rabid  dogs  began  to  arrive  from  all  sides  to  the  laboratory.     The 
' '  service ' '  of  hydrophobia  became  the  chief  business  of  the 
day.     Every  morning  was  spent  by  Eugene  Viala  in  preparing 
the  fragments  of  marrow  used  for  inoculations  :  in  a  little  room 
permanently  kept  at  a  temperature  of  20°  to  23°  C,  stood  rows 
of  sterilized  flasks,  their  tubular  openings  closed  by  plugs  of 
cotton-wool.     Each  flask  contained  a  rabic  marrow,  hanging 
from  the  stopper  by  a  thread  and  gradually  drying  up  by  the 
action  of  some  fragments  of  caustic  potash  lying  at  the  bottom 
of  the  flask.     Viala  cut  those  marrows  into  small  pieces  by 
means  of  scissors  previously  put  through  a  flame,  and  placed 
them  in  small  sterilized  glasses  ;  he  then  added  a  few  drops  of 
veal  broth  and  pounded  the  mixture  with  a  glass  rod.     The 
vaccinal  liquid  was  now  ready ;  each  glass  was  covered  with 
a  paper  cover,   and  bore  the   date  of  the   medulla  used,  the 
earliest  of  which  was  fourteen  days  old.     For  each   patient 
under   treatment   from   a    certain    date,    there    was   a  whole 
series  of  httle  glasses.     Pasteur  always  attended  these  opera- 
tions personally. 

In  the  large  hall  of  the  laboratory,  Pasteur's  collaborators, 
Messrs.  Chamberland  and  Eoux,  carried  on  investigations  into 
contagious  diseases  under  the  master's  directions  ;  the  place  was 
full  of  flasks,  pipets,  phials,  containing  culture  broths.  Etienne 
Wasserzug,  another  curator,  hardly  more  than  a  boy,  fresh 
from  the  Ecole  Normale,  where  his  bright  intelligence  and 
affectionate  heart  had  made  him  very  popular,  translated  (for 
he  knew  the  English,  German,  Italian,  Hungarian  and  Spanish 
languages,  and  was  awaiting  a  favourable  opportunity  of  learn- 
ing Eussian)  the  letters  which  arrived  from  all  parts  of  the 


1885—1888  425 

world ;  he  also  entertained  foreign  scientists.  Pasteur  had  in 
him  a  most  valuable  interpreter.  Physicians  came  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  asking  to  be  allowed  to  study  the  details  of 
the  method.  One  morning,  Dr.  Grancher  found  Pasteur  listen- 
ing to  a  physician  who  was  gravely  and  solemnly  holding  forth 
his  objections  to  microbian  doctrines,,  and  in  particular  to  the 
treatment  of  hydrophobia.  Pasteur  having  heard  this  long 
monologue,  rose  and  said,  "Sir,  your  language  is  not  very 
intelligible  to  me.  I  am  not  a  physician  and  do  not  desire  to 
be  one.  Never  speak  to  me  of  your  dogma  of  morbid  spon- 
taneity. I  am  a  chemist ;  I  carry  out  experiments  and  I  try 
to  understand  what  they  teach  me.  What  do  you  think, 
doctor?"  he  added,  turning  to  M.  Grancher.  The  latter 
smilingly  answered  that  the  hour  for  inoculations  had  struck. 
They  took  place  at  eleven,  in  Pasteur's  study ;  he,  standing  by 
the  open  door,  called  out  the  names  of  the  patients.  The  date 
and  circumstances  of  the  bites  and  the  veterinary  surgeon's 
certificate  were  entered  in  a  register,  and  the  patients  were 
divided  into  series  according  to  the  degree  of  virulence  which 
was  to  be  inoculated  on  each  day  of  the  period  of  treatment. 

Pasteur  took  a  personal  interest  in  each  of  his  patients,  help- 
ing those  who  were  poor  and  illiterate  to  find  suitable  lodgings 
in  the  great  capital.  Children  especially  inspired  him  with  a 
loving  solicitude.  But  his  pity  was  mingled  with  terror,  when, 
on  November  9,  a  little  girl  of  ten  was  brought  to  him  who  had 
been  severely  bitten  on  the  head  by  a  mountain  dog ,  on  October 
3,  thirty-seven  days  before  !  !  The  wound  was  still  suppurating. 
He  said  to  himself,  "  This  is  a  hopeless  case  :  hydrophobia  is 
no  doubt  about  to  appear  immediately ;  it  is  much  too  late 
for  the  preventive  treatment  to  have  the  least  chance  of  success. 
Should  I  not,  in  the  scientific  interest  of  the  method,  refuse  to 
treat  this  child  ?  If  the  issue  is  fatal,  all  those  who  have  already 
been  treated  will  be  frightened,  and  many  bitten  persons,  dis- 
couraged from  coming  to  the  laboratory,  may  succumb  to  the 
disease!"  These  thoughts  rapidly  crossed  Pasteur's  mind. 
But  he  found  himself  unable  to  resist  his  compassion  for  the 
father  and  mother,  begging  him  to  try  and  save  their  child. 

After  the  treatment  was  over,  Louise  Pelletier  had  returned 
to  school,  when  fits  of  breathlessness  appeared,  soon  followed 
by  convulsive  spasms ;  she  could  swallow  nothing.  Pasteur 
hastened  to  her  side  when  these  symptoms  began,  and  new 
inoculations  were   attempted.     On  December  2,  there  was  a 


426  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

respite  of  a  few  hours,  moments  of  calm  which  inspired  Pasteur 
with  the  vain  hope  that  she  might  yet  be  saved.  This  delusion 
was  a  short-lived  one.  After  attending  Bouley's  funeral,  his 
heart  full  of  sorrow,  Pasteur  spent  the  day  by  little  Louise's 
bedside,  in  her  parents'  rooms  in  the  Rue  Dauphine.  He 
could  not  tear  himself  away ;  she  herself ,  full  of  affection  for 
him,  gasped  out  a  desire  that  he  should  not  go  away,  that  he 
should  stay  with  her  !  She  felt  for  his  hand  between  two 
spasms.  Pasteur  shared  the  grief  of  the  father  and  mother. 
When  all  hope  had  to  be  abandoned  :  "  I  did  so  wish  I  could 
have  saved  your  little  one  !  "  he  said.  And  as  he  came  down 
the  staircase,  he  burst  into  tears. 

He  was  obliged,  a  few  days  later,  to  preside  at  the  reception 
of  Joseph  Bertrand  at  the  Academic  Francaise  ;  his  sad  feelings 
little  in  harmony  with  the  occasion.  He  read  in  a  mournful 
and  troubled  voice  the  speech  he  had  prepared  during  his 
peaceful  and  happy  holidays  at  Arbois.  Henry  Houssaye, 
reix)rting  on  this  ceremony  in  the  Journal  des  Debats,  wrote, 
"  M.  Pasteur  ended  his  speech  amidst  a  torrent  of  applause, 
he  received  a  veritable  ovation.  He  seemed  unaccountably 
moved.  How  can  M.  Pasteur,  who  has  received  every  mark 
of  admiration,  every  supreme  honour,  w^hose  name  is  conse- 
crated by  universal  renown,  still  be  touched  by  anything  save 
the  discoveries  of  his  powerful  genius  ?  ' '  People  did  not  realize 
that  Pasteur's  thoughts  were  far  away  from  himself  and  from 
his  brilliant  discovery.  He  was  thinking  of  Dumas,  his  master, 
of  Bouley,  his  faithful  friend  and  colleague,  and  of  the  child 
he  had  been  unable  to  snatch  from  the  jaws  of  death  ;  his  mind 
was  not  with  the  living,  but  with  the  dead. 

A  telegram  from  New  York  having  announced  that  four 
children,  bitten  by  rabid  dogs,  were  starting  for  Paris,  many 
adversaries  who  had  heard  of  Louise  Pelletier's  death  were  say- 
ing triumphantly  that,  if  those  children's  parents  had  known 
of  her  fate ,  they  would  have  spared  them  so  long  and  useless  a 
journey. 

The  four  little  Americans  belonged  to  workmen's  families 
and  were  sent  to  Paris  by  means  of  a  public  subscription  opened 
in  the  columns  of  the  New  York  Herald  ;  they  were  accompanied 
by  a  doctor  and  by  the  mother  of  the  youngest  of  them,  a  boy 
only  five  years  old.  After  the  first  inoculation,  this  little  boy, 
astonished  at  the  insignificant  prick,  could  not  help  saying, 
"  Is  this  all  we  have  come  such  a  long  journey  for?  "     The 


1885—1888  427 

children  were  received  with  enthusiasm  on  their  return  to  New 
York,  and  were  asked  "many  questions  about  the  great  man 
who  had  taken  such  care  of  them." 

A  letter  dated  from  that  time  (January  14,  1886)  shows  that 
Pasteur  yet  found  time  for  kindness,  in  the  midst  of  his  world- 
famed  occupations. 

"  My  dear  Jupille,  I  have  received  your  letters,  and  I  am 
much  pleased  with  the  news  you  give  me  of  your  health.  Mme. 
Pasteur  thanks  you  for  remembering  her.  She,  and  every  one 
at  the  laboratory,  join  with  me  in  wishing  that  you  may  keep 
well  and  improve  as  much  as  possible  in  reading,  writing  and 
arithmetic.  Your  writing  is  already  much  better  than  it  was, 
but  you  should  take  some  pains  with  your  spelling.  Where  do 
you  go  to  school  ?  Who  teaches  you  ?  Do  you  w^ork  at  home 
as  much  as  you  might?  Y'^ou  know  that  Joseph  Meister,  who 
was  first  to  be  vaccinated,  often  writes  to  me ;  well,  I  think  he 
is  improving  more  quickly  than  you  are,  though  he  is  only  ten 
years  old.  So,  mind  you  take  pains,  do  not  waste  your  time 
with  other  boys,  and  listen  to  the  advice  of  your  teachers,  and 
of  your  father  and  mother.  Ptemember  me  to  M.  Perrot,  the 
Mayor  of  Villers-Farlay.  Perhaps,  without  him,  you  would 
have  become  ill,  and  to  be  ill  of  hydrophobia  means  inevitable 
death ;  therefore  you  owe  him  much  gratitude.  Good-bye. 
Keep  well." 

Pasteur's  solicitude  did  not  confine  itself  to  his  two  first 
patients,  Joseph  Meister  and  the  fearless  Jupille,  but  was 
extended  to  all  those  who  had  come  under  his  care ;  his  kind- 
ness was  like  a  living  flame.  The  very  little  ones  who  then, 
only  saw  in  him  a  ' '  kind  gentleman  ' '  bending  over  them 
understood  later  in  life,  when  recalling  the  sweet  smile  lighting. 
up  his  serious  face,  that  Science,  thus  understood,  unites  moral 
with  intellectual  grandeur. 

Good,  like  evil,  is  infectious;  Pasteur's  science  and  devotion, 
inspired  an  act  of  generosity  which  was  to  be  followed  by  many 
others.  He  received  a  visit  from  one  of  his  colleagues  at  the 
Academie  Frangaise,  Edouard  Herve,  who  looked  upon  journal- 
ism as  a  great  responsibility  and  as  a  school  of  mutual  re- 
spect between  adversaries.  He  was  bringing  to  Pasteur,  from 
the  Comte  de  Laubespin,  a  generous  philanthropist,  a  sum  of 
40,000  fr.  destined  to  meet  the  expenses  necessitated  by  the 
organization  of  the   hydrophobia   treatment.     Pasteur,    when 


428  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

questioned  by  Herve,  answered  that  his  intention  was  to  found 
a  model  establishment  in  Paris,  supported  by  donations  and 
international  subscriptions,  without  having  recourse  to  the 
State.  But  he  added  that  he  wanted  to  wait  a  little  longer 
until  the  success  of  the  treatment  was  undoubted.  Statistics 
came  to  support  it;  Bouley,  who  had  been  entrusted  with  an 
official  inquiry  on  the  subject  under  the  Empire,  had  found 
that  the  proportion  of  deaths  after  bites  from  rabid  dogs  had 
been  40  per  100,  320  cases  having  been  watched.  The  propor- 
tion often  was  greater  still  :  whilst  Joseph  Meister  was  under 
Pasteur's  care,  five  persons  were  bitten  by  a  rabid  dog  on  the 
Pantin  Eoad,  near  Paris,  and  every  one  of  them  succumbed  to 
hydrophobia. 

Pasteur,  instead  of  referring  to  Bouley 's  statistics,  preferred 
to  adopt  those  of  M.  Leblanc,  a  veterinary  surgeon  and  a 
member  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine ,  who  had  for  a  long  time 
been  head  of  the  sanitary  department  of  the  Prefecture  de  Police. 
These  statistics  only  gave  a  proportion  of  deaths  of  16  per  100, 
and  had  been  carefully  and  accurately  kept. 

On  March  1,  he  was  able  to  affirm,  before  the  Academy, 
that  the  new  method  had  given  proofs  of  its  merit,  for,  out  of 
350  persons  treated,  only  one  death  had  taken  place,  that  of  the 
little  Pelletier.     He  concluded  thus — 

' '  It  may  be  seen ,  by  comparison  with  the  most  rigorous 
statistics,  that  a  very  large  number  of  persons  have  already  been 
saved  from  death. 

"  The  prophylaxis  of  hydrophobia  after  a  bite  is  estabhshed. 

"It  is  advisable  to  create  a  vaccinal  institute  against 
hydrophobia." 

The  Academy  of  Sciences  appointed  a  Commission  who 
unanimously  adopted  the  suggestion  that  an  establishment  for 
the  preventive  treatment  of  hydrophobia  after  a  bite  should  be 
created  in  Paris,  under  the  name  of  Institut  Pasteur.  A  sub- 
scription was  about  to  be  opened  in  France  and  abroad.  The 
spending  of  the  funds  would  be  directed  by  a  special  Committer. 

A  great  wave  of  enthusiasm  and  generosity  swept  from  one 
end  of  France  to  another  and  reached  foreign  countries.  A 
newspaper  of  Milan,  the  Perseveranza,  which  had  opened  a 
subscription,  collected  6,000  fr.  in  its  first  list.  The  Journal 
d' Alsace  headed  a  propaganda  in  favour  of  this  work,  "  sprung 
from  Science  and  Charity."  It  reminded  its  readers  that 
Pasteur  had  occupied  a  professor's  chair  in  the  former  brilliant 


1885—1888  429 

Faculty  of  Science  of  Strasburg,  and  that  his  first  inocula- 
tion was  made  on  an  Alsatian  boy,  Joseph  Meister.  The 
newspaper  intended  to  send  the  subscriptions  to  Pasteur 
with  these  words  :  "  Offerings  from  Alsace-Lorraine  to  the 
Pasteur  Institute." 

The  war  of  1870  still  darkened  the  memories  of  nations. 
Amongst  eager  and  numerous  inventions  of  instruments  of 
death  and  destruction,  humanity  breathed  when  fresh  news 
came  from  the  laboratory,  where  a  continued  struggle  was 
taking  place  against  diseases.  The  most  mysterious,  the  most 
cruel  of  all  was  going  to  be  reduced  to  impotence. 

Yet  the  method  was  about  to  meet  with  a  few  more  cases  like 
Louise  Pelletier's ;  accidents  would  result,  either  from  delay  or 
from  exceptionally  serious  wounds.  Happy  days  were  still  in 
store  for  those  who  sowed  doubt  and  hatred. 

During  the  early  part  of  March,  Pasteur  received  nineteen 
Bussians,  coming  from  the  province  of  Smolensk.  They  had 
been  attacked  by  a  rabid  wolf  and  most  of  them  had  terrible 
wounds  :  one  of  them,  a  priest,  had  been  surprised  by  the 
infuriated  beast  as  he  was  going  into  church ,  his  upper  lip  and 
right  cheek  had  been  torn  off,  his  face  was  one  gaping  wound. 
Another,  the  youngest  of  them,  had  had  the  skin  of  his  forehead 
torn  off  by  the  wolf's  teeth ;  other  bites  were  like  knife  cuts. 
Five  of  these  unhappy  wretches  were  in  such  a  condition  that 
they  had  to  be  carried  to  the  Hotel  Dieu  Hospital  as  soon  as  they 
arrived. 

The  Eussian  doctor  who  had  accompanied  these  mujiks 
related  how  the  wolf  had  wandered  for  two  days  and  two 
nights,  tearing  to  pieces  every  one  he  met,  and  how  he  had 
finally  been  struck  down  with  an  axe  by  one  of  those  he  had 
bitten  most  severely. 

Because  of  the  gravity  of  the  wounds,  and  in  order  to  make 
up  for  the  time  lost  by  the  Russians  before  they  started,  Pasteur 
decided  on  making  two  inoculations  every  day,  one  in  the  morn- 
ing and  one  in  the  evening ;  the  patients  at  the  Hotel  Dieu 
could  be  inoculated  upon  at  the  hospital. 

The  fourteen  others  came  every  morning  in  their  touloupes 
and  fur  caps,  with  their  wounds  bandaged,  and  joined  without  a 
word  the  motley  groups  awaiting  treatment  at  the  laboratory — 
an  English  family,  a  Basque  peasant,  a  Hungarian  in  his 
national  costume,  etc.,  etc. 


430  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

In  the  evening,  the  dumb  and  resigned  band  of  mujiks  came 
again  to  the  laboratory  door.  They  seemed  led  by  Fate,  heed- 
less of  the  struggle  between  life  and  death  of  which  they  were 
the  prize.  "  Pasteur  "  was  the  only  French  word  they  knew, 
and  their  set  and  melancholy  faces  brightened  in  his  presence 
as  with  a  ray  of  hope  and  gratitude. 

Their  condition  was  the  more  alarming  that  a  whole  fort- 
night had  elapsed  between  their  being  bitten  and  the  date  of 
the  first  inoculations.  Statistics  were  terrifying  as  to  the  results 
of  wolf-bites,  the  average  proportion  of  deaths  being  82  per  100. 
General  anxiety  and  excitement  prevailed  concerning  the  hap- 
less Russians,  and  the  news  of  the  death  of  three  of  them 
produced  an  intense  emotion. 

Pasteur  had  unceasingly  continued  his  visits  to  the  Hotel 
Dieu.  He  was  overwhelmed  with  grief.  His  confidence  in  his 
method  was  in  no  wise  shaken,  the  general  results  would  not 
allow  it.  But  questions  of  statistics  were  of  little  account  in 
his  eyes  when  he  was  the  witness  of  a  misfortune ;  his  charity 
was  not  of  that  kind  which  is  exhausted  by  collective  generali- 
ties :  each  individual  appealed  to  his  heart.  As  he  passed 
through  the  wards  at  the  Hotel  Dieu,  each  patient  in  his  bed 
inspired  him  with  deep  compassion.  And  that  is  why  so  many 
who  only  saw  him  pass,  heard  his  voice,  met  his  pitiful  eyes 
resting  on  them,  have  preserved  of  him  a  memory  such  as  the 
poor  had  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul. 

"The  other  Russians  are  keeping  well  so  far,"  declared 
Pasteur  at  the  Academy  sitting  of  April  12,  1886.  Whilst 
certain  opponents  in  France  continued  to  discuss  the  three 
deaths  and  apparently  saw  nought  but  those  failures,  the  return 
of  the  sixteen  survivors  was  greeted  with  an  almost  religious 
emotion.  Other  Russians  had  come  before  them  and  were 
saved,  and  the  Tsar,  knowing  these  things,  desired  his  brother, 
the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  to  bring  to  Pasteur  an  imperial  gift, 
the  Cross  of  the  Order  of  St.  Anne  of  Russia,  in  diamonds. 
He  did  more,  he  gave  100,000  fr.  in  aid  of  the  proposed  Pasteur 
Institute. 

In  April,  1886,  the  English  Government,  seeing  the  practical 
results  of  the  method  for  the  prophylaxis  of  hydrophobia, 
appointed  a  Commission  to  study  and  verify  the  facts.  Sir 
James  Paget  was  the  president  of  it,  and  the  other  members 
were  : — Dr.  Lauder-Brunton,  Mr.  Fleming,  Sir  Joseph  Lister, 
Dr.  Quain,  Sir  Henry  Roscoe,  Professor  Burdon  Sanderson,  and 


1885—1888  431 

Mr.  Victor  Horsley,  secretary.     The  resume  of  the  programme 
was  as  follows — 

Development  of  the  rabic  virus  in  the  medulla  oblongata  of 
animals  dying  of  rabies. 

Transmission  of  this  virus  by  subdural  or  subcutaneous 
inoculation. 

Intensification  of  this  virus  by  successive  passages  from 
rabbit  to  rabbit. 

Possibility  either  of  protectig  healthy  animals  from  ulterior 
bites  from  rabid  animals,  or  of  preventing  the  onset  of  rabies  in 
animals  already  bitten,  by  means  of  vaccinal  inoculations. 

Applications  of  this  method  to  man  and  value  of  its  results. 

Burdon  Sanderson  and  Horsley  came  to  Paris,  and  two 
rabbits,  inoculated  on  by  Pasteur,  were  taken  to  England;  a 
series  of  experiments  was  to  be  begun  on  them,  and  an  inquiry 
was  to  take  place  afterwards  concerning  patients  treated  both 
in  France  and  in  England.  Pasteur,  who  lost  his  temper  at 
prejudices  and  ill-timed  levity,  approved  and  solicited  inquiry 
and  careful  examination. 

Long  lists  of  subscribers  appeared  in  the  Journal  Officiel — 
millionaires,  poor  workmen,  students,  women,  etc.  A  great 
festival  was  organized  at  the  Trocadero  in  favour  of  the  Pasteur 
Institute  ;  the  greatest  artistes  offered  their  services.  Coquelin 
recited  verses  written  for  the  occasion  which  excited  loud 
applause  from  the  immense  audience.  Gounod,  who  had  con- 
ducted his  Ave  Maria,  turned  round  after  the  closing  bars,  and, 
in  an  impulse  of  heartfelt  enthusiasm,  kissed  both  his  hands  to 
the  savant. 

In  the  evening  at  a  banquet,  Pasteur  thanked  his  colleagues 
and  the  organizers  of  this  incomparable  performance.  "  Was 
it  not,"  he  said,  "a  touching  sight,  that  of  those  immortal 
composers,  those  great  charmers  of  fortunate  humanity  coming 
to  the  assistance  of  those  who  wish  to  study  and  to  serve  suffer- 
ing humanity?  And  you  too  come,  great  artistes,  great  actors, 
like  so  many  generals  re-entering  the  ranks  to  give  greater 
vigour  to  a  common  feeling.  I  cannot  easily  describe  what  I 
felt.  Dare  I  confess  that  I  was  hearing  most  of  you  for  the 
first  time  ?  I  do  not  think  I  have  spent  more  than  ten  evenings 
of  my  whole  life  at  a  theatre.  But  I  can  have  no  regrets  now 
that  you  have  given  me,  in  a  few  hours'  interval,  as  in  an 
exquisite  synthesis,  the  feelings  that  so  many  others  scatter  over 
several  months,  or  rather  several  years." 


432  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

A  few  days  later,  the  subscription  from  Alsace-Lorraine 
brought  in  43,000  fr.  Pasteur  received  it  with  grateful  emotion, 
and  was  pleased  and  touched  to  find  the  name  of  little  Joseph 
Meister  among  the  list  of  private  subscribers.  It  was  now 
eleven  months  since  he  had  been  bitten  so  cruelly  by  the  dog, 
whose  rabic  condition  had  immediately  been  recognized  by  the 
German  authorities.  Pasteur  ever  kept  a  corner  of  his  heart 
for  the  boy  who  had  caused  him  such  anxiety. 

Pasteur's  name  was  now  familiar  to  all  those  who  w^ere  try- 
ing to  benefit  humanity ;  his  presence  at  charitable  gatherings 
was  considered  as  a  happy  omen,  and  he  was  asked  to  preside 
on  many  such  occasions.  He  was  ever  ready  with  his  help  and 
sympathy,  speaking  in  public,  answering  letters  from  private 
individuals,  giving  wholesome  advice  to  young  people  who  came 
to  him  for  it,  and  doing  nothing  by  halves.  If  he  found  the 
time,  even  during  that  period  when  the  study  of  rabies  was 
absorbing  him,  to  undertake  so  many  things  and  to  achieve  so 
many  tasks,  he  owed  it  to  Mme.  Pasteur,  who  watched  over 
his  peace,  keeping  him  safe  from  intrusions  and  interruptions. 
This  retired,  almost  recluse  Ufe,  enabled  him  to  complete  many 
works,  a  few  of  which  would  have  sufficed  to  make  several 
scientists  celebrated. 

Every  morning,  between  ten  and  eleven  o'clock,  Pasteur 
walked  down  the  Rue  Claude-Bernard  to  the  Rue  Vauquelin, 
where  a  few  temporary  buildings  had  been  erected  to  facilitate 
the  treatment  of  hydrophobia,  close  to  the  rabbit  hutches,  hen- 
coops, and  dog  kennels  which  occupied  the  yard  of  the  old 
College  Rollin.  The  patients  under  treatment  walked  about 
cheerfully  amidst  these  surroundings,  looking  like  holiday 
makers  in  a  Zoological  Garden.  Children,  whose  tears  were 
already  dried  at  the  second  inoculation,  ran  about  merrily. 
Pasteur,  who  loved  the  little  ones,  always  kept  sweets  or  new 
copper  coins  for  them  in  his  drawer.  One  little  girl  amused 
herself  by  having  holes  bored  in  those  coins,  and  hung  them 
round  her  neck  like  a  necklace  ;  she  was  wearing  this  ornament 
on  the  day  of  her  departure,  when  she  ran  to  kiss  the  great  man 
as  she  would  have  kissed  her  grandfather. 

Drs.  Grancher,  Roux,  Chantemesse,  and  Charrin  came  by 
turns  to  perform  the  inoculations.  A  surgery  ward  had  been 
installed  to  treat  the  numerous  wounds  of  the  patients,  and 
entrusted  to  the  young  and  energetic  Dr.  Terrillon. 


1885—1888  433 

In  August,  1886,  while  staying  at  Arbois,  Pasteur  spent 
much  time  over  his  notes  and  registers;  he  was  sometimes 
tempted  to  read  over  certain  articles  of  passionate  criticism. 
' '  How  difficult  it  is  to  obtain  the  triumph  of  truth  !  "  he  would 
say.  "  Opposition  is  a  useful  stimulant,  but  bad  faith  is  such 
a  pitiable  thing.  How  is  it  that  they  are  not  struck  with  the 
results  as  shown  by  statistics?  From  1880  to  1885,  sixty 
persons  are  stated  to  have  died  of  hydrophobia  in  the 
Paris  hospitals;  well,  since  November  1,  1885,  when  the 
prophylactic  method  was  started  in  my  laboratory,  only  three 
deaths  have  occurred  in  those  hospitals ,  two  of  which  were  cases 
which  had  not  been  treated.  It  is  evident  that  very  few  people 
who  had  been  bitten  did  not  come  to  be  treated.  In  France, 
out  of  that  unknown  but  very  restricted  number,  seventeen 
cases  of  death  have  been  noted,  whilst  out  of  the  1,726  French 
and  Algerians  who  came  to  the  laboratory  only  ten  died  after 
the  treatment." 

But  Pasteur  was  not  yet  satisfied  with  this  proportion,  already 
so  low ;  he  was  trying  to  forestall  the  outburst  of  hydrophobia 
by  a  greater  rapidity  and  intensity  of  the  treatment.  He  read 
a  paper  on  the  subject  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  on  November 
2,  1886.  Admiral  Jurien  de  la  Graviere,  who  was  in  the  chair, 
said  to  him,  "  All  great  discoveries  have  gone  through  a  time  of 
trial.  May  your  health  withstand  the  troubles  and  difficulties 
in  your  way." 

Pasteur's  health  had  indeed  suffered  from  so  much  work  and 
anxiety,  and  there  were  symptoms  of  some  heart  trouble.  Drs. 
Villemin  and  Grancher  persuaded  him  to  interrupt  his  work  and 
to  think  of  spending  a  restful  winter  in  the  south  of  France. 
M.  Eaphael  Bischoffsheim,  a  great  lover  of  science,  placed  at 
Pasteur's  disposal  his  beautiful  villa  at  Bordighera,  close  to  the 
French  frontier,  which  he  had  on  divers  occasions  lent  to  other 
distinguished  guests,  the  Queen  of  Italy,  Henri  Sainte-Claire 
Deville,  Gambetta,  etc. 

Pasteur  consented  to  leave  his  work  at  the  end  of  November, 
and  started  one  evening  from  the  Gare  de  Lyon  with  his  wife , 
his  daughter  and  her  husband,  and  his  two  grandchildren; 
eighteen  friends  came  to  the  station  to  see  him  off,  including 
his  pupils,  M.  Bischoffsheim,  and  some  foreign  physicians  who 
were  staying  in  Paris  to  study  the  prophylactic  treatment  of 
hydrophobia. 

The   bright   dawn   and  the  sunshine  already  appearing    at 

F  F 


434  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Avignon  contrasted  with  the  foggy  November  weather  left 
behind  in  Paris  and  brought  a  feeling  of  comfort,  almost  of 
returning  health  ;  a  delegation  of  doctors  met  the  train  at  Nice, 
bringing  Pasteur  their  good  wishes. 

The  travelling  party  drove  from  Vintimille  to  Bordighera 
under  the  deep  blue  sky  reflected  in  a  sea  of  a  yet  deeper  blue, 
along  a  road  bordered  with  cacti,  palms  and  other  tropical  plants. 
The  sight  of  the  lovely  gardens  of  the  Villa  Bischoffsheim  gave 
Pasteur  a  delicious  feeling  of  rest. 

His  health  soon  improved  sufficiently  for  him  to  be  able  to 
take  some  short  walks.  But  his  thoughts  constantly  recurred 
to  the  laboratory.  M.  Duclaux  was  then  thinking  of  starting  a 
monthly  periodical  entitled  Annals  of  the  Pasteur  Institute. 
Pasteur,  writing  to  him  on  December  27,  1887,  to  express  his 
approbation,  suggested  various  experiments  to  be  attempted. 
He  attributed  the  action  of  the  preventive  inoculations  to  a 
vaccinal  matter  associated  with  the  rabic  microbe.  Pasteur  had 
thought  at  first  that  the  first  development  of  the  pathogenic 
microbe  caused  the  disappearance  from  the  organism  of  an 
element  necessary  to  the  life  of  that  microbe.  It  was,  in  other 
words,  a  theory  of  exhaustion.  But  since  1885,  he  adopted  the 
other  idea,  supported  indeed  by  biologists,  that  immunity  was 
due  to  a  substance  left  in  the  body  by  the  culture  of  the  microbe 
and  which  opposed  the  invasion — a  theory  of  addition. 

"  I  am  happy  to  learn,"  wrote  Villemin,  his  friend  and  his 
medical  adviser,  "that  your  health  is  improving;  continue  to 
rest  in  that  beautiful  country,  you  have  well  deserved  it,  and 
rest  is  ab5oZwte/|/ necessary  to  you.  You  have  overtaxed  yourself 
beyond  all  reason  and  you  must  make  up  for  it.  Eepairs  to 
the  nervous  system  are  worked  chiefly  by  relaxation  from  the 
mental  storms  and  moral  anxieties  which  your  rahid  work  has 
occasioned  in  you.     Give  the  Bordighera  sun  a  chance  !  " 

But  Pasteur  was  not  allowed  the  rest  he  so  much  needed ;  on 
January  4,  1887,  referring  to  a  death  which  had  occurred  after 
treatment  in  the  preceding  December,  M.  Peter  declared  that 
the  antirabic  cure  was  useless  ;  at  the  following  meeting  he 
called  it  dangerous  when  applied  in  the  "intensive"  form. 
Dujardin-Beaumetz,  Chauveau  and  Verneuil  immediately  inter- 
vened, declaring  that  the  alleged  fact  was  "  devoid  of  any  scien- 
tific character."  A  week  later,  MM.  Grancher  and  Brouardel 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  discussion.  Grancher,  Pasteur's  repre- 
sentative on  this  occasion,  disproved  certain  allegations,  and 


1885—1888  435 

added:  "The  medical  men  who  have  been  chosen  by  M, 
Pasteur  to  assist  him  in  his  work  have  not  hesitated  to  practise 
the  antirabic  inoculation  on  themselves,  as  a  safeguard  against 
an  accidental  inoculation  of  the  virus  which  they  are  constantly 
handling.  What  greater  proof  can  they  give  of  their  bona  fide 
convictions?"  He  showed  that  the  mortality  amongst  the 
cases  treated  remained  below  1  per  100.  "  M.  Pasteur  will 
soon  publish  foreign  statistics  from  Samara,  Moscow,  St. 
Petersburg,  Odessa,  Warsaw  and  Vienna  :  they  are  all  abso- 
lutely favourable." 

As  it  was  insinuated  that  the  laboratory  of  the  Ecole  Normale 
kept  its  failures  a  secret,  it  was  decided  that  the  Annals  of  the 
Pasteur  Institute  would  publish  a  monthly  list  and  bulletin  of 
patients  under  treatment. 

Vulpian,  at  another  meeting  (it  was  almost  the  last  time  he 
was  heard  at  the  Academic  de  Medecine),  said,  h,  propos  of  what 
he  called  an  inexcusable  opposition,  "  This  new  benefit  adds 
to  the  number  of  those  which  our  illustrious  Pasteur  has  already 
rendered  to  humanity.  .  .  .  Our  works  and  our  names  will  soon 
be  buried  under  the  rising  tide  of  oblivion  :  the  name  and  the 
works  of  M.  Pasteur  will  continue  to  stand  on  heights  too  great 
to  be  reached  by  its  sullen  waves."  Pasteur  was  much  dis- 
turbed by  the  noise  of  these  discussions  ;  every  post  increased  his 
feverishness,  and  he  spoke  every  morning  of  returning  to  Paris 
to  answer  his  opponents. 

It  was  a  pitiful  thing  to  note  on  his  worn  countenance  the 
visible  signs  of  the  necessity  of  the  peace  and  rest  offered  by 
this  beautiful  land  of  serene  sunshine ;  and  to  hear  at  the  same 
time  a  constant  echo  of  those  angry  debates.  Anonymous 
letters  were  sent  to  him,  insulting  newspaper  articles — all  that 
envy  and  hatred  can  invent ;  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature 
was  being  revealed  to  him.  "  I  did  not  know  I  had  so  many 
enemies,"  he  said  mournfully.  He  was  consoled  to  some  extent 
by  the  ardent  support  of  the  greatest  medical  men  in  France. 

Vulpian,  in  a  statement  to  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  con- 
stituted himself  Pasteur's  champion.  Pasteur  indeed  was  safe 
from  attacks  in  that  centre,  but  certain  low  slanderers  who 
attended  the  public  meetings  of  the  Academic  continued  to 
accuse  Pasteur  of  concealing  the  failures  of  his  method.  Vulpian 
— who  was  furiously  angry  at  such  an  insinuation  against  ' '  a 
man  like  M.  Pasteur,  whose  good  faith,  loyalty  and  scientific 
integrity  should  be  an  example  to  his  adversaries  as  they  are  to 

F  F   2 


436  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

his  friends  "—thought  that  it  was  in  the  interest  both  of 
science  and  of  humanity  to  state  once  more  the  facts  recently 
confirmed  by  new  statistics  ;  the  pubUc  is  so  impressionable  and 
so  mobile  in  its  opinions  that  one  article  is  often  enough  to  shake 
general  confidence.  He  was  therefore  anxious  to  reassure  all 
those  who  had  been  inoculated  on  and  who  might  be  induced 
by  those  discussions  to  wonder  with  anguish  whether  they 
really  were  saved.  The  Academy  of  Sciences  decided  that 
Vulpian's  statement  should  be  inserted  in  extenso  in  all  the 
reports  and  a  copy  of  it  sent  to  every  village  in  France. 
Vulpian  wrote  to  Pasteur  at  the  same  time,  "  All  your  admirers 
hope  that  those  interested  attacks  will  merely  excite  your  con- 
tempt. Fine  weather  is  no  doubt  reigning  at  Bordighera  :  you 
must  take  advantage  of  it  and  become  quite  well.  .  .  .  The 
Academy  of  Medicine  is  almost  entirely  on  your  side ;  there  are 
at  the  most  but  four  or  five  exceptions." 

Pasteur  had  a  few  calm  days  after  these  debates.  Whilst 
planning  out  new  investigations,  he  was  much  interested  in  the 
plans  for  his  Institute  which  were  now  submitted  to  him.  His 
thoughts  were  always  away  from  Bordighera,  which  he  seemed 
to  look  upon  as  a  sort  of  exile.  This  impression  was  partly  due 
to  the  situation  of  the  town,  so  close  to  the  frontier,  and  the 
haunt  of  so  many  homeless  wanderers.  He  once  met  a  sad- 
faced,  still  beautiful  woman,  in  mourning  robes,  and  recognized 
the  Empress  Eugenie. 

Shortly  afterwards ,  he  received  a  visit  from  Prince  Napoleon , 
who  dragged  his  haughty  ennui  from  town  to  town.  He  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  Villa  Bischoffsheim  under  the  name  of 
Count  Moncalieri,  coming,  he  said,  to  greet  his  colleague  of  the 
Institute.  Kabies  formed  the  subject  of  their  conversation. 
The  next  day,  Pasteur  called  on  the  Prince,  in  his  common- 
place hotel  rooms ,  a  mere  temporary  resting  place  for  the  exiled 
Bonaparte,  whose  mysterious,  uncompleted  destiny  was  made 
more  enigmatical  by  his  startling  resemblance  to  the  great 
Emperor. 

On  February  23,  the  day  after  the  carnival,  early  in  the 
morning,  a  violent  earthquake  cast  terror  over  that  peaceful  land 
where  nature  hides  with  flowers  the  spectre  of  death.  At  6.20 
a.m.  a  low  and  distant  rumbling  sound  was  heard,  coming  from 
the  depths  of  the  earth  and  resembling  the  noise  of  a  train  pass- 
ing  in   an    underground   tunnel ;   houses   began    to  rock    and 


1885—1888  437 

ominous  cracks  were  heard.  This  first  shock  lasted  more  than 
a  minute,  during  which  the  sense  of  solidity  disappeared  alto- 
gether, to  be  succeeded  by  a  feeling  of  absolute,  hopeless,  impo- 
tence. No  doubt,  in  every  household,  families  gathered 
together,  with  a  sudden  yearning  not  to  be  divided.  Pasteur's 
wife,  children  and  grandchildren  had  barely  had  time  to  come 
to  him  when  another  shock  took  place,  more  terrible  than  the 
first;  everything  seemed  about  to  be  engulfed  in  an  abyss. 
Never  had  morning  been  more  radiant ;  there  was  not  a  breath 
of  wind,  the  air  was  absolutely  transparent. 

An  early  departure  was  necessary  :  the  broken  ceilings  were 
dropping  to  pieces,  shaken  off  by  an  incessant  vibration  of  the 
ground  which  continued  after  the  second  shock,  and  of  which 
Pasteur  observed  the  effect  on  glass  windows  with  much  interest. 
Pasteur  and  his  family  dove  off  to  Vintimille  in  a  carriage,  along 
a  road  lined  with  ruined  houses,  crowded  with  sick  people  in 
quest  of  carriages  and  peasants  coming  down  from  their  moun- 
tain dwellings,  destroyed  by  the  shock,  leading  donkeys  loaded 
with  bedding,  the  women  followed  by  little  children  hastily 
wrapt  in  blankets  and  odd  clothes.  At  Vintimille  station, 
terrified  travellers  were  trying  to  leave  France  for  Italy  or 
Italy  for  France,  fancying  that  the  danger  would  cease  on  the 
other  side  of  the  frontier. 

"  We  have  resolved  to  go  to  Arbois,"  wrote  Mme.  Pasteur 
to  her  son  from  Marseilles ;  ' '  your  father  will  be  better  able 
there  than  anywhere  else  to  recover  from  this  shock  to  his 
heart." 

After  a  few  weeks'  stay  at  Arbois,  Pasteur  seemed  quite 
well  again.  He  was  received  with  respect  and  veneration  on  his 
return  to  the  Academies  of  Sciences  and  of  Medicine.  His  best 
and  greatest  colleagues  had  reahzed  what  the  loss  of  him  would 
mean  to  France  and  to  the  world,  and  surrounded  him  with  an 
anxious  solicitude. 

At  the  beginning  of  July,  Pasteur  received  the  report  pre- 
sented to  the  House  of  Commons  by  the  English  Commission 
after  a  fourteen  months'  study  of  the  prophylactic  method 
against  hydrophobia.  The  English  scientists  had  verified  every 
one  of  the  facts  upon  which  the  method  was  founded,  but  they 
had  not  been  satisfied  with  their  experimental  researches  in  Mr. 
Horsley's  laboratory,  and  had  carried  out  a  long  and  minute 
inquiry  in  France.  After  noting  on  Pasteur's  registers  the 
names  of  ninety  persons  treated,  who  had  come  from  the  same 


438  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

neighbourhood,  they  had  interviewed  each  one  of  them  in  their 
own  homes.  "  It  may  therefore  be  considered  as  certain  " — 
thus  ran  the  report — "that  M.  Pasteur  has  discovered  a 
prophylactic  method  against  hydrophobia  which  may  be  com- 
pared with  that  of  vaccination  against  small-pox.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  overestimate  the  utility  of  this  discovery,  both  from 
the  point  of  view  of  its  practical  side  and  of  its  applicaton  to 
general  pathology.  We  have  here  a  new  method  of  inoculation, 
or  vaccination,  as  M.  Pasteur  sometimes  calls  it,  and  similar 
means  might  be  employed  to  protect  man  and  domestic  animals 
against  other  virus  as  active  as  that  of  hydrophobia." 

Pasteur  laid  this  report  on  the  desk  of  the  Academy  of 
Sciences  on  July  4.  He  spoke  of  its  spirit  of  entire  and 
unanimous  confidence,  and  added — 

' '  Thus  fall  to  the  ground  the  contradictions  which  have  been 
published.  I  leave  on  one  side  the  passionate  attacks  which 
were  not  justified  by  the  least  attempt  at  experiment,  the 
slightest  observation  of  facts  in  my  laboratory,  or  even  an 
exchange  of  words  and  ideas  with  the  Director  of  the  Hydro- 
phobia Clinic,  Professor  Grancher,  and  his  medical  assistants. 

"But,  however  deep  is  my  satisfaction  as  a  Frenchman,  I 
cannot  but  feel  a  sense  of  deepest  sadness  at  the  thought  that 
this  high  testimony  from  a  commission  of  illustrious  scientists 
was  not  known  by  him  who,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  appli- 
cation of  this  method,  supported  me  by  his  counsels  and  his 
authority,  and  who  later  on,  when  I  was  ill  and  absent,  knew 
so  well  how  to  champion  truth  and  justice ;  I  mean  our  beloved 
colleague  Vulpian." 

Vulpian  had  succumbed  to  a  few  days'  illness.  His  speech 
in  favour  of  Pasteur  was  almost  the  farewell  to  the  Academy  of 
this  great-hearted  scientist. 

The  discussion  threatened  to  revive.  Other  colleagues 
defended  Pasteur  at  the  Academy  of  Medicine  on  July  12. 
Professor  Brouardel  spoke,  also  M.  Villemin,  and  then  Charcot, 
who  insisted  on  quoting  word  for  word  Vulpian 's  true  and 
simple  phrase  :  ' '  The  discovery  of  the  preventive  treatment  of 
hydrophobia  after  a  bite,  entirely  due  to  M.  Pasteur's  experi- 
mental genius,  is  one  of  the  finest  discoveries  ever  made,  both 
from  the  scientific  and  the  humanitarian  point  of  view."  And 
Charcot  continued  :  "  I  am  persuaded  that  I  express  in  these 
words  the  opinion  of  all  the  medical  men  who  have  studied 
the   question   with   an  open   mind,   free   from   prejudice;  the 


1885—1888  439 

inventor  of  antirabic  vaccination  may,  now  more  than  ever, 
hold  his  head  high  and  continue  to  accomphsh  his  glorious  task, 
heedless  of  the  clamour  of  systematic  contradiction  or  of  the 
insidious  murmurs  of  slander." 

The  Academy  of  Sciences  begged  Pasteur  to  become  its 
Life  Secretary  in  Vulpian's  place.  Pasteur  did  not  reply  at 
once  to  this  offer,  but  went  to  see  M.  Berthelot  :  "  This  high 
position,"  he  said,  "  would  be  more  suitable  to  you  than  to 
me."  M.  Berthelot,  much  touched,  refused  unconditionally, 
and  Pasteur  accepted.  He  was  elected  on  July  18.  He  said, 
in  thanking  his  colleagues ,  "I  would  now  spend  what  time 
remains  before  me,  on  the  one  hand  in  encouraging  to  research 
and  in  training  for  scientific  studies, — the  future  of  which  seems 
to  me  most  promising, — pupils  worthy  of  French  science ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  following  attentively  the  work  incited 
and  encouraged  by  this  Academy. 

"  Our  only  consolation,  as  we  feel  our  own  strength  failing 
us,  is  to  feel  that  we  may  help  those  who  come  after  us  to  do 
more  and  to  do  better  than  ourselves,  fixing  their  eyes  as  they 
can  on  the  great  horizons  of  which  we  only  had  a  glimpse." 

He  did  not  long  fulfil  his  new  duties.  On  October  23,  Sun- 
day morning,  after  writing  a  letter  in  his  room,  he  tried  to  speak 
to  Mme.  Pasteur  and  could  not  pronounce  a  word ;  his  tongue 
was  paralyzed.  He  had  promised  to  lunch  with  his  daughter 
on  that  day,  and,  fearing  that  she  might  be  alarmed,  he  drove 
to  her  house.  After  spending  a  few  hours  in  an  easy  chair,  he 
consented  to  remain  at  her  house  with  Mme.  Pasteur.  In 
the  evening  his  speech  returned,  and  two  days  later,  when  he 
went  back  to  the  Ecole  Normale,  no  one  would  have  noticed 
any  change  in  him.  But,  on  the  following  Saturday  morning, 
he  had  another  almost  similar  attack,  without  any  premonitory 
symptoms.  His  speech  remained  somewhat  difficult,  and  his 
deep  powerful  voice  completely  lost  its  strength.  In  January, 
1888,  he  was  obliged  to  resign  his  secretaryship. 

Ill-health  had  emaciated  his  features.  A  portrait  of  him  by 
Carolus  Duran  represents  him  looking  ill  and  weary,  a  sad  look 
in  his  eyes.  But  goodness  predominates  in  those  worn  features, 
revealing  that  lovable  soul,  full  of  pity  for  all  human  sufferings, 
and  of  which  the  painter  has  rendered  the  unspeakable  thrill. 

Pasteur's  various  portraits,  compared  with  one  another,  show 
us  different  aspects  of  his  physiognomy.  A  luminous  profile, 
painted  by  Henner  ten  years  before,  brings  out  the  powerful 


440  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

harmony  of  the  forehead.  In  1886,  Bonnat  painted,  for  the 
brewer  Jacobsen,  who  wished  to  present  it  to  Mme.  Pasteur,  a 
large  portrait  which  may  be  called  an  official  one.  Pasteur  is 
standing  in  rather  an  artificial  attitude,  which  might  be 
imperious,  if  his  left  hand  was  not  resting  on  the  shoulder  of 
his  granddaughter,  a  child  of  six,  with  clear  pensive  eyes.  In 
that  same  year,  Edelfeldt,  the  Finnish  painter,  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  come  into  the  laboratory  for  a  few  sketches.  Pasteur 
came  and  went,  attending  to  his  work  and  taking  no  notice  of 
the  painter.  One  day  that  Edelfeldt  was  watching  him  thus, 
deep  in  observation,  his  forehead  lined  with  almost  painful 
thoughts,  he  undertook  to  portray  the  savant  in  his  meditative 
attitude.  Pasteur  is  standing  clad  in  a  short  brown  coat,  an 
experimental  card  in  his  left  hand,  in  his  right,  a  phial  contain- 
ing a  fragment  of  rabic  marrow,  the  expression  in  his  eyes 
entirely  concentrated  on  the  scientific  problem. 

During  the  year  1888,  Pasteur,  after  spending  the  morning 
with  his  patients,  used  to  go  and  watch  the  buildings  for  the 
Pasteur  Institute  which  were  being  erected  in  the  Eue  Dutot. 
11,000  square  yards  of  ground  had  been  acquired  in  the  midst 
of  some  market  gardens.  Instead  of  rows  of  hand-lights  and 
young  lettuces,  a  stone  building,  with  a  Louis  XIII  facade,  was 
now  being  constructed.  An  interior  gallery  connected  the  main 
building  with  the  large  wings.  The  Pasteur  Institute  was  to  be 
at  the  same  time  a  great  dispensary  for  the  treatment  of  hydro- 
phobia, a  centre  of  research  on  virulent  and  contagious  diseases, 
and  also  a  teaching  centre.  M.  Duclaux's  class  of  biological 
chemistry,  held  at  the  Sorbonne,  was  about  to  be  transferred  to 
the  Pasteur  Institute,  where  Dr.  Eoux  would  also  give  a  course 
of  lectures  on  technical  microbia.  The  "  service  "  of  vaccina- 
tions against  anthrax  was  entrusted  to  M.  Chamberland.  (The 
statistics  of  1882-1887  gave  a  total  of  1,600,000  sheep  and  nearly 
200,000  oxen.)  There  would  also  be,  under  M.  Metchnikoff's 
direction,  some  private  laboratories,  the  monkish  cells  of  the 
Pastorians. 

At  the  end  of  October,  the  work  was  almost  completed  ; 
Pasteur  invited  the  President  of  the  Eepublic  to  come  and 
inaugurate  the  Institute.  "  I  shall  certainly  not  fail  to  do  so," 
answered  Carnot;  "  your  Institute  is  a  credit  to  France." 

On  November  14,  politicians,  colleagues,  friends,  collabora- 
tors, pupils  assembled  in  the  large  library  of  the  new  Institute. 
Pasteur  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  before  him,  in  the  first  rank, 


1885—1888  441 

Duruy  and  Jules  Simon ;  it  was  a  great  day  for  these  former 
Ministers  of  Public  Instruction.  Like  them,  Pasteur  had  all 
his  life  been  deeply  interested  in  higher  education.  "  If  that 
teaching  is  but  for  a  small  number,"  he  said,  "it  is  with  this 
small  number,  this  elite  that  the  prosperity,  glory  and 
supremacy  of  a  nation  rest." 

Joseph  Bertrand,  chairman  of  the  Institute  Committee,  know- 
ing that  by  so  doing  he  responded  to  Pasteur's  dearest  wishes, 
spoke  of  the  past  and  recalled  the  memories  of  Biot,  Senarmont, 
Claude  Bernard,  Balard,  and  J.  B.  Dumas. 

Professor  Grancher,  Secretary  of  the  Committee,  alluded  to 
the  way  in  which  not  only  Vulpian  but  Brouardel,  Charcot, 
Verneuil,  Chauveau  and  Villemin  had  recently  honoured  them- 
selves by  supporting  the  cause  of  progress  and  preparing  its 
triumph.  These  memories  of  early  friends,  associated  with  that 
of  recent  champions,  brought  before  the  audience  a  vision  of 
the  procession  of  years.  After  speaking  of  the  obstacles  Pasteur 
had  so  often  encountered  amongst  the  niedical  world — 

"You  know,"  said  M.  Grancher,  "that  M.  Pasteur  is  an 
innovator,  and  that  his  creative  imagination,  kept  in  check  by 
rigorous  observation  of  facts,  has  overturned  many  errors  and 
built  up  in  their  place  an  entirely  new  science.  His  discoveries 
on  ferments,  on  the  generation  of  the  infinitesimally  small,  on 
microbes,  the  cause  of  contagious  diseases,  and  on  the  vaccina- 
tion of  those  diseases,  have  been  for  biological  chemistry,  for 
the  veterinary  art  and  for  medicine,  not  a  regular  progress,  but 
a  complete  revolution.  Now,  revolutions,  even  those  imposed 
by  scientific  demonstration,  ever  leave  behind  them  vanquished 
ones  who  do  not  easily  forgive.  M.  Pasteur  has  therefore  many 
adversaries  in  the  world,  without  counting  those  Athenian 
French  who  do  not  like  to  see  one  man  always  right  or  always 
fortunate.  And,  as  if  he  had  not  enough  adversaries,  M. 
Pasteur  makes  himself  new  ones  by  the  rigorous  implacability 
of  his  dialectics  and  the  absolute  form  he  sometimes  gives  to  his 
thought." 

Going  on  to  the  most  recently  acquired  results,  M.  Grancher 
stated  that  the  mortality  amongst  persons  treated  after  bites 
from  rabid  dogs  remained  under  1  per  100. 

"If  those  figures  are  indeed  eloquent,"  said  M.  Christophle, 
the  treasurer,  who  spoke  after  M.  Grancher,  "other  figures 
are  touching.  I  would  advise  those  who  only  see  the  dark  side 
of  humanity,"  he  remarked,  before  entering  upon  the  statement 


442  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

of  accounts — "those  who  go  about  repeating  that  everything 
here  below  is  for  the  worst,  that  there  is  no  disinterestedness, 
no  devotion  in  this  world — to  cast  their  eyes  over  the  '  human 
documents  '  of  the  Pasteur  Institute.  They  would  learn  therein, 
beginning  at  the  beginning,  that  Academies  contain  colleagues 
who  are  not  offended,  but  proud  and  happy  in  the  fame  of 
another ;  that  politicians  and  journalists  often  have  a  passion 
for  what  is  good  and  true ;  that  at  no  former  epoch  have  great 
men  been  more  beloved  in  France ;  that  justice  is  already  ren- 
dered to  them  during  their  lifetime,  which  is  very  much  the 
best  way  of  doing  so ;  that  we  have  cheered  Victor  Hugo's 
birthday,  Chevreul's  centenary,  and  the  inauguration  of  the 
Pasteur  Institute.  When  a  Frenchman  runs  himself  down, 
said  one  of  M.  Pasteur's  colleagues,  do  not  beheve  him;  he  is 
boasting !  Eeversing  a  celebrated  and  pessimistic  phrase,  it 
might  be  said  that  in  this  public  subscription  all  the  vu'tues 
flow  into  unselfishness  like  rivers  into  the  sea." 

M.  Christophle  went  on  to  show  how  rich  and  poor  had  joined 
in  this  subscription  and  raised  an  amount  of  2,586,680  fr.  The 
French  Chambers  had  voted  200,000  fr.,  to  which  had  been 
added  international  gifts  from  the  Tsar,  the  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
and  the  Sultan.  The  total  expenses  would  probably  reach 
1,563,786  fr.,  leaving  a  little  more  than  a  million  to  form  an 
endowment  for  the  Pasteur  Institute,  a  fund  which  was  to  be 
increased  every  year  by  the  product  of  the  sale  of  vaccines  from 
the  laboratory,  which  Pasteur  and  Messrs.  Chamberland  and 
Eoux  agreed  to  give  up  to  the  Institute. 

"  It  is  thus,  Sir,"  concluded  the  treasurer,  directly  addressing 
Pasteur,  "that  pubhc  generosity,  practical  help  from  the 
Government,  and  your  own  disinterestedness  have  founded  and 
consolidated  the  establishment  which  we  are  to-day  inaugurat- 
ing." And,  persuaded  that  the  solicitude  of  the  public  would 
never  fail  to  support  this  great  work,  "  This  is  for  you.  Sir,  a 
rare  and  almost  unhoped  for  happiness ;  let  it  console  you  for 
the  passionate  struggles,  the  terrible  anxiety  and  the  many 
emotions  you  have  gone  through." 

Pasteur,  overcome  by  his  feelings,  had  to  ask  his  son  to  read 
his  speech.  It  began  by  a  rapid  summary  of  what  France  had 
done  for  education  in  all  its  degrees.  "From  village  schools 
to  laboratories,  everything  has  been  founded  or  renovated." 
After  acknowledging  the  help  given  him  in  later  years  by  the 
public  authorities,  he  continued — 


1885—1888  443 

"And  when  the  day  came  that,  foreseeing  the  future  which 
would  be  opened  by  the  discovery  of  the  attenuation  of  virus,  I 
appealed  to  my  country,  so  that  we  should  be  allowed,  through 
the  strength  and  impulse  of  private  initiative,  to  build  labora- 
tories to  be  devoted,  not  only  to  the  prophylactic  treatment  of 
hydrophobia,  but  also  to  the  study  of  virulent  and  contagious 
diseases — on  that  day  again,  France  gave  in  handfuls.  .  .  .  Itis 
now  finished,  this  great  building,  of  which  it  might  be  said  that 
there  is  not  a  stone  but  what  is  the  material  sign  of  a  generous 
thought.  All  the  virtues  have  subscribed  to  build  this  dwelling 
place  for  work. 

"Alas!  mine  is  the  bitter  grief  that  I  enter  it,  a  man 
'vanquished  by  Time,'  deprived  of  my  masters,  even  of  my 
companions  in  the  struggle,  Dumas,  Bouley,  Paul  Bert,  and 
lastly  Vulpian,  who,  after  having  been  with  you,  my  dear 
Grancher,  my  counsellor  at  the  very  first,  became  the  most 
energetic,  the  most  convinced  champion  of  this  method. 

"  However,  if  I  have  the  sorrow  of  thinking  that  they  are  no 
more,  after  having  valiantly  taken  their  part  in  discussions 
which  I  have  never  provoked  but  have  had  to  endure ;  if  they 
cannot  hear  me  proclaim  all  that  I  owe  to  their  counsels  and 
support ;  if  I  feel  their  absence  as  deeply  as  on  the  morrow  of 
their  death ,  I  have  at  least  the  consolation  of  believing  that  all 
that  we  struggled  for  together  will  not  perish.  The  collaborators 
and  pupils  who  are  now  here  share  our  scientific  faith.  ..." 
He  continued,  as  in  a  sort  of  testament  :  "  Keep  your  early 
enthusiasm,  dear  collaborators,  but  let  it  ever  be  regulated  by 
rigorous  examinations  and  tests.  Never  advance  anything 
which  cannot  be  proved  in  a  simple  and  decisive  fashion. 

"  Worship  the  spirit  of  criticism.  If  reduced  to  itself,  it  is 
not  an  awakener  of  ideas  or  a  stimulant  to  great  things,  but, 
without  it,  everything  is  fallible ;  it  always  has  the  last  word. 
What  I  am  now  asking  you,  and  you  will  ask  of  your  pupils 
later  on,  is  what  is  most  difficult  to  an  inventor. 

"  It  is  indeed  a  hard  task,  when  you  believe  you  have  found 
an  important  scientific  fact  and  are  feverishly  anxious  to  publish 
it,  to  constrain  yourself  for  days,  weeks,  years  sometimes,  to 
fight  with  yourself,  to  try  and  ruin  your  own  experiments  and 
only  to  proclaim  your  discovery  after  having  exhausted  all 
contrary  hypotheses. 

"  But  when,  after  so  many  efforts,  you  have  at  last  arrived 
at  a  certainty,  your  joy  is  one  of  the  greatest  which  can  be  felt 


444  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

by  a  human  soul ,  and  the  thought  that  you  will  have  contributed 
to  the  honour  of  your  country  renders  that  joy  still  deeper. 

"  If  science  has  no  country,  the  scientist  should  have  one,  and 
ascribe  to  it  the  influence  which  his  works  may  have  in  this 
world.  If  I  might  be  allowed,  M.  le  President,  to  conclude  by 
a  philosophical  remark  inspired  by  your  presence  in  this  Home 
of  Work,  I  should  say  that  two  contrary  laws  seem  to  be  wrest- 
ling with  each  other  nowadays ;  the  one,  a  law  of  blood  and  of 
death,  ever  imagining  new  means  of  destruction  and  forcing 
nations  to  be  constantly  ready  for  the  battlefield — the  other,  a 
law  of  peace,  work  and  health,  ever  evolving  new  means  of 
delivering  man  from  the  scourges  which  beset  him. 

"  The  one  seeks  violent  conquests,  the  other  the  relief  of 
humanity.  The  latter  places  one  human  life  above  any  victory  ; 
while  the  former  would  sacrifice  hundreds  and  thousands  of  lives 
to  the  ambition  of  one.  The  law  of  which  we  are  the  instru- 
ments seeks,  even  in  the  midst  of  carnage,  to  cure  the  sanguinary 
ills  of  the  law  of  war ;  the  treatment  inspired  by  our  antiseptic 
methods  may  preserve  thousands  of  soldiers.  Which  of  those 
two  laws  will  ultimately  prevail,  God  alone  knows.  But  we 
may  assert  that  French  Science  will  have  tried,  by  obeying  the 
law  of  Humanity,  to  extend  the  frontiers  of  Life." 


CHAPTEE    XIV 
1889—1895 

In  this  Institute,  which  Pasteur  entered  ill  and  weary,  he  con- 
templated with  joy  those  large  laboratories,  which  would  enable 
his  pupils  to  work  with  ease  and  to  attract  around  them  investi- 
gators from  all  countries.  He  was  happy  to  think  that  the 
material  difficulties  which  had  hampered  him  would  be  spared 
those  who  came  after  him.  He  believed  in  the  realization  of  his 
wishes  for  peace,  work,  mutual  help  among  men.  Whatever  the 
obstacles,  he  was  persuaded  that  science  would  continue  its 
civilizing  progress  and  that  its  benefits  would  spread  from 
domain  to  domain.  Differing  from  those  old  men  who  are  ever 
praising  the  past,  he  had  an  enthusiastic  confidence  in  the 
future;  he  foresaw  great  developments  of  his  studies,  some  of 
which  were  already  apparent.  His  first  researches  on 
crystallography  and  molecular  dissymmetry  had  served  as  a  basis 
to  stereo-chemistry.  But,  while  he  followed  the  studies  on  that 
subject  of  Le  Bel  and  Van  t'Hoff,  he  continued  to  regret  that 
he  had  not  been  able  to  revert  to  the  studies  of  his  youth, 
enslaved  as  he  had  been  by  the  inflexible  logical  sequence  of  his 
works.  "Every  time  we  have  had  the  privilege  of  hearing 
Pasteur  speak  of  his  early  researches,"  writes  M.  Chamberland, 
in  an  article  in  the  Revue  Scientifique,  "we  have  seen  the 
revival  in  him  of  a  smouldering  fire ,  and  we  have  thought  that 
his  countenance  showed  a  vague  regret  at  having  forsaken  them. 
Who  can  now  say  what  discoveries  he  might  have  made  in  that 
direction?  "  "  One  day,"  said  Dr.  Hericourt — who  spent  the 
summer  near  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  and  who  often  came  into  the 
Park  with  his  two  sons — "  he  favoured  me  with  an  admirable, 
captivating  discourse  on  this  subject,  the  like  of  which  I  have 
never  heard." 

Pasteur,  instead  of  feeling  regret,  might  have  looked  back 
with  calm  pride  on  the  progress  he  had  made  in  other  directions. 


446  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

In  what  obscurity  were  fermentation  and  infection  enveloped 
before  his  time,  and  with  what  Ught  he  had  penetrated  them  ! 
When  he  had  discovered  the  all-powerful  role  of  the  infinite- 
simally  small,  he  had  actually  mastered  some  of  those  living 
germs,  causes  of  disease;  he  had  transformed  them  from 
destructive  to  preservative  agents.  Not  only  had  he  renovated 
medicine  and  surgery,  but  hygiene,  misunderstood  and 
neglected  until  then,  was  benefiting  by  the  experimental 
method.     Light  was  being  thrown  on  preventive  measures. 

M.  Henri  Monod,  Director  of  Hygiene  and  Public  Charities, 
one  day  quoted,  a  propos  of  sanitary  measures,  these  words  of 
the  great  English  Minister,  Disraeli — 

' '  Public  health  is  the  foundation  upon  which  rest  the  happi- 
ness of  the  people  and  the  power  of  the  State.  Take  the  most 
beautiful  kingdom,  give  it  intelligent  and  laborious  citizens, 
prosperous  manufactures,  productive  agriculture ;  let  arts 
flourish ,  let  architects  cover  the  land  with  temples  and  palaces  ; 
in  order  to  defend  all  these  riches,  have  first-rate  weapons, 
fleets  of  torpedo  boats — if  the  population  remains  stationary,  if 
it  decreases  yearly  in  vigour  and  in  stature,  the  nation  must 
perish.  And  that  is  why  I  consider  that  the  first  duty  of  a 
statesman  is  the  care  of  Public  Health." 

In  1889,  when  the  International  Congress  of  Hygiene  met  in 
Paris,  M.  Brouardel  was  able  to  say — 

"  If  echoes  from  this  meeting  could  reach  them  .  .  .  our 
ancestors  would  learn  that  a  revolution,  the  most  formidable 
for  thirty  centuries,  has  shaken  medical  science  to  its  very 
foundations,  and  that  it  is  the  work  of  a  stranger  to  their 
corporation  ;  and  their  sons  do  not  cry  Anathema,  they  admire 
him,  bow  to  his  laws.  .  .  .  We  all  proclaim  ourselves  disciples 
of  Pasteur." 

On  the  very  day  after  those  words  were  pronounced ,  Pasteur 
saw  the  realization  of  one  of  his  most  ardent  wishes,  the 
inauguration  of  the  new  Sorbonne.  At  the  sight  of  the  won- 
derful facilities  for  work  offered  by  this  palace,  he  remembered 
Claude  Bernard's  cellar,  his  own  garret  at  the  Ecole  Normale, 
and  felt  a  movement  of  patriotic  pride. 

In  October,  1889,  though  his  health  remained  shaken,  he 
insisted  on  going  to  Alais,  where  a  statue  was  being  raised  to 
J.  B.  Dumas.  Many  of  his  colleagues  tried  to  dissuade  him 
from  this  long  and  fatiguing  journey,  but  he  said:  "I  am 
alive,  I  shall  go."     At  the  foot  of  the  statue,  he  spoke  of  his 


1889—1895  447 

master,  one  of  those  men  who  are  "  the  tutelary  spirits  of  a 
nation." 

The  sericicultors ,  desiring  to  thank  him  for  the  five  years 
he  had  spent  in  studying  the  silkworm  disease,  offered  him  an 
artistic  souvenir  :  a  silver  heather  twig  laden  with  gold  cocoons. 

Pasteur  did  not  fail  to  remind  them  that  it  was  at  the 
request  of  their  fellow  citizen  that  he  had  studied  pebrine. 
He  said ,  "In  the  expression  of  your  gratitude ,  by  which  I 
am  deeply  touched,  do  not  forget  that  the  initiative  was  due  to 
M.  Dumas." 

Thus  his  character  revealed  itself  on  every  occasion.  Every 
morning,  with  a  step  rendered  heavy  by  age  and  ill-health, 
he  went  from  his  rooms  to  the  Hydrophobia  Clinic,  arriving 
there  long  before  the  patients.  He  superintended  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  vaccinal  marrows ;  no  detail  escaped  him.  When 
the  time  came  for  inoculations,  he  was  already  informed  of  each 
patient's  name,  sometimes  of  his  poor  circumstances;  he  had 
a  kind  word  for  every  one,  often  substantial  help  for  the  very 
poor.  The  children  interested  him  most ;  whether  severely 
bitten,  or  frightened  at  the  inoculation,  he  dried  their  tears 
and  consoled  them.  How  many  children  have  thus  kept  a 
memory  of  him  !  "  When  I  see  a  child,"  he  used  to  say,  "  he 
inspires  me  with  two  feelings  :  tenderness  for  what  he  is  now, 
respect  for  what  he  may  become  hereafter." 

Already  in  May,  1892,  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway  had 
formed  various  Committees  of  scientists  and  pupils  of  Pasteur 
to  celebrate  his  seventieth  birthday.  In  France,  it  was  in 
November  that  the  Medical  and  Surgical  Section  of  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  constituted  a  Subscription  Committee  to 
offer  Pasteur  an  affectionate  homage.  Eoty,  the  celebrated 
engraver,  was  desired  to  finish  a  medal  he  had  already  begun, 
representing  Pasteur  in  profile,  a  skull  cap  on  his  broad  fore- 
head, the  brow  strongly  prominent,  the  whole  face  full  of 
energy  and  meditation.  His  shoulders  are  covered  with  the 
cape  he  usually  wore  in  the  morning  in  the  passages  of  his 
Institute.  Eoty  had  not  time  to  design  a  satisfactory  reverse 
side ;  he  surrounded  vd.th  laurels  and  roses  the  following 
inscription:  "To  Pasteur,  on  his  seventieth  birthday. 
France  and  Humanity  grateful." 

On  the  morning  of  December  27,  1892,  the  great  theatre  of 
the  Sprbonne  was  filled.     The  seats  of  honour  held  the  French 


448  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

and  foreign  delegates  from  Scientific  Societies,  the  members 
of  the  Institute,  and  the  Professors  of  Faculties.  In  the 
amphitheatre  were  the  deputations  from  the  E coles  Normale, 
Polytechnique,  Centrale,  of  Pharmacy,  Veterinaires ,  and  of 
Agriculture — deep  masses  of  students.  People  pointed  out 
to  each  other  Pasteur's  pupils,  Messrs.  Duclaux,  Eoux, 
Chamberland,  Metchnikoff,  in  their  places;  M.  Perdrix,  a 
former  Normalien,  now  an  Agrdge-preparateur ;  M.  Edouard 
Calmette,  a  former  student  of  the  Ecole  Centrale,  who  had 
taken  part  in  the  studies  on  beer ;  and  M.  Denys  Cochin,  who, 
thirteen  years  before,  had  studied  alcoholic  fermentation  in 
the  laboratory  of  the  Eue  d'Ulm.  The  first  gallery  was  full 
of  those  who  had  subscribed  towards  the  presentation  about 
to  be  made  to  Pasteur.  In  the  second  gallery,  boys  from 
lycdes  crowned  the  immense  assembly  with  a  youthful  garland. 

At  half  past  10  o'clock,  whilst  the  band  of  the  Republican 
Guard  played  a  triumphal  march,  Pasteur  entered,  leaning 
on  the  arm  of  the  President  of  the  Republic.  Carnot  led  him 
to  a  little  table,  whereon  the  addresses  from  the  various  dele- 
gates were  to  be  laid.  The  Presidents  of  the  Senate  and  of 
the  Chamber,  the  Ministers  and  Ambassadors,  took  their  seats 
on  the  platform.  Behind  the  President  of  the  Republic  stood, 
in  their  uniform,  the  official  delegates  of  the  five  Academies 
which  form  the  Institut  de  France.  The  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine and  the  great  Scientific  Societies  were  represented  by  their 
presidents  and  life-secretaries. 

M.  Charles  Dupuy,  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  rose  to 
speak,  and  said,  after  retracing  Pasteur's  great  works — 

' '  Who  can  now  say  how  much  human  life  owes  to  you  and 
how  much  more  it  will  owe  to  you  in  the  future  !  The  day  will 
come  when  another  Lucretius  will  sing,  in  a  new  poem  on 
Nature,  the  immortal  Master  whose  genius  engendered  such 
benefits. 

' '  He  will  not  describe  him  as  a  solitary ,  unfeeling  man ,  like 
the  hero  of  the  Latin  poet ;  but  he  will  show  him  mingling 
with  the  life  of  his  time,  with  the  joys  and  trials  of  his  country, 
dividing  his  life  between  the  stern  enjoyment  of  scientific 
research  and  the  sweet  communion  of  family  intercourse ; 
going  from  the  laboratory  to  his  hearth,  finding  in  his  dear 
ones,  particularly  in  the  helpmeet  who  has  understood  him 
so  well  and"  loved  him  all  the  better  for  it,  that  comforting 
encouragement  of  every  hour  and  each  moment,  without  which 


1889—1895  449 

so  many  struggles  might  have  exhausted  his  ardour,  arrested 
his  perseverance,  and  enervated  his  genius.   .   .   . 

"  May  France  keep  you  for  many  more  years,  and  show  you 
to  the  world  as  the  worthy  object  of  her  love,  of  her  gratitude 
and  pride." 

The  President  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  M.  d'Abbadie., 
was  chosen  to  present  to  Pasteur  the  commemorative  medal  of 
this  great  day. 

Joseph  Bertrand  said  that  the  same  science,  wide,  accurate, 
and  solid,  had  been  a  foundation  to  all  Pasteur's  works,  each 
of  them  shining  "  with  such  a  dazzling  light,  that,  in  looking 
at  either,  one  is  inclined  to  think  that  it  eclipses  all  others." 

After  a  few  words  from  M.  Daubr^e,  senior  member  of  the 
Mineralogical  Section  and  formerly  a  colleague  of  Pasteur's  at 
the  Strasburg  Faculty,  the  great  Lister,  who  represented  the 
Eoyal  Societies  of  London  and  Edinburgh,  brought  to  Pasteur 
the  homage  of  medicine  and  surgery.     "You  have,"  said  he, 

raised  the  veil  which  for  centuries  had  covered  infectious 
diseases ;  you  have  discovered  and  demonstrated  their 
microbian  nature." 

When  Pasteur  rose  to  embrace  Lister,  the  sight  of  those 
two  men  gave  the  impression  of  a  brotherhood  of  science 
labouring  to  diminish  the  sorrows  of  humanity. 

After  a  speech  from  M.  Bergeron,  Life- Secretary  of  the 
Academy  of  Medicine,  and  another  from  M.  Sauton,  President 
of  the  Paris  Municipal  Council,  the  various  delegates  pre- 
sented the  addresses  they  had  brought.  Each  of  the  large 
cities  of  Europe  had  its  representative.  The  national  dele- 
gates were  called  in  their  turn.  A  student  from  the  Alfort 
Veterinary  School  brought  a  medal  offered  by  the  united 
Veterinary  Schools  of  France.  Amongst  other  offerings, 
Pasteur  was  given  an  album  containing  the  signatures  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Arbois ,  and  another  coming  from  Dole ,  in  which 
were  reproduced  a  facsimile  of  his  birth-certificate  and  a  photo- 
graph of  the  house  in  which  he  was  born.  The  sight  of  his 
father's  signature  at  the  end  of  the  certificate  moved  him  more 
than  anything  else. 

The  Paris  Faculty  of  Medicine  was  represented  by  its  Dean, 
Professor  Brouardel.  "  More  fortunate  than  Harvey  and  than 
Jenner,"  he  said,  "  you  have  been  able  to  see  the  triumph  of 
your  doctrines ,  and  what  a  triumph  !  .   .  . " 

The  last  word  of  homage  was  pronounced  by  M.    Devise, 

G  G 


450  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

President  of  the  Students'  Association,  who  said  to  Pasteur, 
' '  You  have  been  very  great  and  very  good ;  you  have  given 
a  beautiful  example  to  students." 

Pasteur's  voice,  made  weaker  than  usual  by  his  emotion, 
could  not  have  been  heard  all  over  the  large  theatre ;  his 
thanks  were  read  out  by  his  son — 

"  Monsieur  le  President  de  la  Eepublique,  your  presence 
transforms  an  intimate  fete  into  a  great  ceremony,  and  makes 
of  the  simple  birthday  of  a  savant  a  special  date  for  French 
science. 

"  M.  le  Ministre,  Gentlemen — In  the  midst  of  all  this  mag- 
nificence, my  first  thought  takes  me  back  to  the  melancholy 
memoiy  of  so  many  men  of  science  who  have  known  but  trials. 
In  the  past,  they  had  to  struggle,  against  the  prejudices  which 
hampered  their  ideas.  After  those  prejudices  were  vanquished, 
they  encountered  obstacles  and  difficulties  of  all  kinds. 

"Very  few  years  ago,  before  the  public  authorities  and 
the  town  councils  had  endowed  science  with  splendid  dwell- 
ings, a  man  whom  I  loved  and  admired,  Claude  Bernard,  had, 
for  a  laboratory,  a  wretched  cellar  not  far  from  here,  low  and 
damp.  Perhaps  it  was  there  that  he  contracted  the  disease  of 
which  he  died.  When  I  heard  what  you  were  preparing  for 
me  here,  the  thought  of  him  arose  in  my  mind;  I  hail  his 
great  memory. 

"  Gentlemen,  by  an  ingenious  and  delicate  thought,  you  seem 
to  make  the  whole  of  my  life  pass  before  my  eyes.  One  of  my 
Jura  compatriots,  the  Mayor  of  Dole,  has  brought  me  a  photo- 
graph of  the  very  humble  home  where  my  father  and  mother 
lived  such  a  hard  hfe.  The  presence  of  the  students  of  the 
Ecole  Normale  brings  back  to  me  the  glamour  of  my  first 
scientific  enthusiasms.  The  representatives  of  the  Lille 
Faculty  evoke  memories  of  my  first  studies  on  crystallography 
and  fermentation,  which  opened  to  me  a  new  world.  What 
hopes  seized  upon  me  when  I  realized  that  there  must  be 
laws  behind  so  many  obscure  phenomena !  You,  my  dear 
colleagues,  have  witnessed  by  what  series  of  deductions  it  was 
given  to  me,  a  disciple  of  the  experimental  method,  to  reach 
physiological  studies.  If  I  have  sometimes  disturbed  the  calm 
of  our  Academies  by  somewhat  violent  discussions,  it  was 
because  I  was  passionately  defending  truth. 

"And  you,  delegates  from  foreign  nations,  who  have  come 
from  so  far  to  give  to  France  a  proof  of  sympathy,  you  bring 


1889—1895  451 

me  the  deepest  joy  that  can  be  felt  by  a  man  whose  invincible 
belief  is  that  Science  and  Peace  will  triumph  over  Ignorance 
and  War,  that  nations  will  unite,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  build, 
and  that  the  future  will  belong  to  those  who  will  have  done 
most  for  suffering  humanity.  I  appeal  to  you,  my  dear  Lister, 
and  to  you  all,  illustrious  representatives  of  medicine  and 
surgery. 

"Young  men,  have  confidence  in  those  powerful  and  safe 
methods,  of  which  we  do  not  yet  know  all  the  secrets.  And, 
whatever  your  career  may  be,  do  not  let  yourselves  become 
tainted  by  a  deprecating  and  barren  scepticism,  do  not  let 
yourselves  be  discouraged  by  the  sadness  of  certain  hours 
which  pass  ovej  nations.  Live  in  the  serene  peace  of 
laboratories  and  libraries.  Say  to  yourselves  first  :  '  What 
have  I  done  for  my  instruction?'  and,  as  you  gradually 
advance,  'What  have  I  done  for  my  country?'  until  the  time 
comes  when  you  may  have  the  immense  happiness  of  thinking 
that  you  have  contributed  in  some  way  to  the  progress  and  to 
the  good  of  humanity.  But,  whether  our  efforts  are  or  not 
favoured  by  life,  let  us  be  able  to  say,  when  we  come  near  the 
great  goal,  '  I  have  done  what  I  could.' 

' '  Gentlemen ,  I  would  express  to  you  my  deep  emotion  and 
hearty  gratitude.  In  the  same  way  as  Koty,  the  great  artist, 
has,  on  the  back  of  this  medal,  hidden  under  roses  the  heavy 
number  of  years  which  weigh  on  my  life,  you  have,  my  dear 
colleagues,  given  to  my  old  age  the  most  delightful  sight  of 
all  this  living  and  loving  youth." 

The  shouts  ' '  Vive  Pasteur !  ' '  resounded  throughout  the 
building.  The  President  of  the  Kepublic  rose,  went  towards 
Pasteur  to  congratulate  him,  and  embraced  him  with  effusion. 

Hearts  went  out  to  Pasteur  even  from  distant  countries. 
The  Canadian  Government,  acting  on  the  suggestion  of  the 
deputies  of  the  province  of  Quebec,  gave  the  name  of  Pasteur 
to  a  district  on  the  borders  of  the  state  of  Maine. 

A  few  weeks  after  the  fete,  the  Governor-General  of  Algeria, 
M.  Cambon,  wrote  to  Pasteur  as  follows — 

' '  Sir — Desirous  of  showing  to  you  the  special  gratitude  which 
Algeria  bears  you  for  the  immense  services  you  have  rendered 
to  science  and  to  humanity  by  your  great  and  fruitful  dis- 
coveries, I  have  decided  that  your  name  should  be  given  to 
the  village  of  Seriana,  situated  in  the  arrondissement  of  Batna, 

G  G  2 


452  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

department  of  Constantine.  I  am  happy  that  I  have  been 
able  to  render  this  sUght  homage  to  your  illustrious  person." 
"  I  feel  a  deep  emotion,"  replied  Pasteur,  "  in  thinking  that, 
thanks  to  you,  my  name  will  remain  attached  to  that  corner 
of  the  world.  When  a  child  of  this  village  asks  what  was 
the  origin  of  this  denomination,  I  should  like  the  schoolmaster 
to  tell  him  simply  that  it  is  the  name  of  a  Frenchman  who 
loved  France  very  much,  and  who,  by  serving  her,  contributed 
to  the  good  of  humanity.  My  heart  is  thrilled  at  the  thought 
that  my  name  might  one  day  awaken  the  first  feelings  of 
patriotism  in  a  child's  soul.  I  shall  owe  to  you  this  great  joy 
in  my  old  age;  I  thank  you  more  than  I  can  say."  The 
origin  of  Seriana  is  very  ancient.  M.  Stephane  Gsell  relates 
that  this  village  was  occupied  long  before  the  coming  of  the 
Romans,  by  a  tribe  which  became  Christian,  as  is  seen  by  ruins 
of  chapels  and  basilicas.  It  is  situated  on  the  slope  of  a 
mountain  covered  with  oaks  and  cedars,  and  giving  rise  to 
springs  of  fresh  water.  A  bust  of  Pasteur  was  soon  after 
erected  in  this  village,  at  the  request  of  the  inhabitants. 

Enthusiasm  for  Pasteur  was  spreading  everywhere. 
Women  understood  that  science  was  entering  their  domain, 
since  it  served  charity.  They  gave  magnificent  gifts ;  clauses 
in  wills  bore  these  words  :  "To  Pasteur,  to  help  in  his 
humanitarian  task."  In  November,  1893,  Pasteur  saw  an 
unknown  lady  enter  his  study  in  the  Rue  Dutot,  and  heard  her 
speak  thus  :  "  There  must  be  some  students  who  love  science 
and  who,  having  to  earn  their  living,  cannot  give  themselves 
up  to  disinterested  work.  I  should  like  to  place  at  your  dis- 
posal four  scholarships,  for  four  young  men  chosen  by  you. 
Each  scholarship  would  be  of  3,000  fr. ;  2,400  for  the  men 
themselves,  and  600  fr.  for  the  expenses  they  would  incur  in 
your  laboratories.  Their  lives  would  be  rendered  easier.  You 
could  find  amongst  them,  either  an  immediate  collaborator 
for  your  Institute  or  a  missionary  whom  you  might  send  far 
away;  and  if  a  medical  career  tempted  them,  they  would  be 
enabled  by  their  momentary  independence  to  prepare  them- 
selves all  the  better  for  their  profession.  I  only  ask  one  thing, 
which  is  that  my  name  should  not  be  mentioned." 

Pasteur  was  infinitely  touched  by  the  scheme  of  this  mys- 
terious lady.  The  scholarship  foundation  was  for  one  year  only, 
but  other  years  were  about  to  follow  and  to  resemble  this  one. 


1889—1895  453 

Many  letters  brought  to  Pasteur  requested  that  he  should 
study  or  order  the  study  of  such  and  such  a  disease.  Some  of 
these  letters  responded  to  preoccupations  which  had  long  been 
in  the  mind  of  Pasteur  and  his  disciples.  One  day  he  received 
these  lines  : 

"  You  have  done  all  the  good  a  man  could  do  on  earth.  If 
you  will,  you  can  surely  find  a  remedy  for  the  horrible  disease 
called  diphtheria.  Our  children,  to  whom  we  teach  your  name 
as  that  of  a  great  benefactor,  will  owe  their  lives  to  you. — 

A  MOTHEE." 

Pasteur,  in  spite  of  his  failing  strength,  had  hopes  that  he 
would  yet  live  to  see  the  defeat  of  the  foe  so  dreaded  by 
mothers.  In  the  laboratory  of  the  Pasteur  Institute,  Dr.  Eoux 
and  Dr.  Yersin  were  obstinately  pursuing  the  study  of  this 
disease.  In  their  first  paper  on  the  subject,  modestly  entitled 
A  Gontrihution  to  the  Study  of  Diphtheria,  they  said  :  "  Ever 
since  Bretonneau,  diphtheria  has  been  looked  upon  as  a  specific 
and  contagious  disease ;  its  study  has  therefore  been  under- 
taken of  late  years  with  the  help  of  the  microbian  methods 
which  have  already  been  the  means  of  finding  the  cause  of 
many  other  infectious  diseases." 

In  spite  of  the  convictions  of  Bretonneau,  who  had,  in  1818, 
witnessed  a  violent  epidemic  of  croup  in  the  centre  of  France, 
his  view  was  far  from  being  generally  adopted.  Velpeau, 
then  a  young  student,  wrote  to  him  in  1820  that  all  the 
members,  save  two,  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  were  agreed 
in  opposing  or  blaming  his  opinions.  Another  brilliant  pupil 
of  Bretonneau's,  Dr.  Trousseau,  who  never  ceased  to  cor- 
respond with  his  old  master,  wrote  to  him  in  1854  :  "  It  remains 
to  be  proved  that  diphtheria  always  comes  from  a  germ.  I 
hardly  doubt  this  with  regard  to  small-pox ;  to  be  consistent,  I 
ought  not  to  doubt  it  either  with  regard  to  diphtheria.  I  was 
thinking  so  this  morning,  as  I  was  performing  tracheotomy 
on  a  poor  child  twenty-eight  months  old ;  opposite  the  bed, 
there  was  a  picture  of  his  five-year-old  brother,  painted  on  his 
death-bed.  He  had  succumbed  five  years  ago,  to  malignant 
angina." 

Knowing  Bretonneau's  ideas  on  contagion.  Trousseau  wrote 
further  down  :  "  I  shall  have  the  beds  and  bedding  burnt,  the 
paper  hangings  also,  for  they  have  a  velvety  and  attractive 


454  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

surface ;  I  shall  tell  the  mother  to  purify  herself  like  a  Hindoo 
—else  what  would  you  say  to  me!  " 

A  German  of  the  name  of  Klebs  discovered  the  bacillus  of 
diphtheria  in  1883,  by  studying  the  characteristic  membranes; 
it  was  afterwards  isolated  by  Loeffler,  another  German. 

Pure  cultures  of  this  bacillus,  injected  on  the  surface  of  the 
excoriated  fauces  of  rabbits,  guinea-pigs,  and  pigeons,  pro- 
duce the  diphtheritic  membranes  :  Messrs.  Eoux  and  Yersin 
demonstrated  this  fact  and  ascertained  the  method  of  its  deadly 
action. 

Dr.  Eoux,  in  a  lecture  to  the  London  Koyal  Society,  in  1889, 
said  :  ' '  Microbes  are  chiefly  dangerous  on  account  of  the  toxic 
matters  which  they  produce."  He  recalled  that  Pasteur  had 
been  the  first  to  investigate  the  action  of  the  toxic  products 
elaborated  by  the  microbe  of  chicken-cholera.  By  filtering 
the  culture.  Pastern'  had  obtained  a  liquid  which  contained  no 
microbes.  Hens  inoculated  with  this  liquid  presented  all  the 
symptoms  of  cholera.  "  This  experiment  shows  us,"  con- 
tinued M.  Eoux,  "that  the  chemical  products  contained  in 
the  culture  are  capable  by  themselves  of  provoking  the 
symptoms  of  the  disease ;  it  is  therefore  very  probable  that  the 
same  products  are  prepared  within  the  body  itself  of  a  hen 
attacked  with  cholera.  It  has  been  shown  since  then  that 
many  pathogenic  microbes  manufactured  these  toxic  products. 
The  microbes  of  typhoid  fever,  of  cholera,  of  blue  pus,  of  acute 
experimental  septicaemia,  of  diphtheria,  are  great  poison-pro- 
ducers. The  cultures  of  the  diphtheria  bacillus  particularly 
are,  after  a  certain  time,  so  full  of  the  toxin  that,  without 
microbes,  and  in  infinitesimal  doses,  they  cause  the  death  of 
the  animals  with  all  the  signs  observed  after  inoculation  with 
the  microbe  itself.  The  picture  of  the  disease  is  complete, 
even  presenting  the  ensuing  paralysis  if  the  injected  dose  is 
too  weak  to  bring  about  a  rapid  death.  Death  in  infectious 
diseases  is  therefore  caused  by  intoxication." 

This  bacillus,  like  that  of  tetanus,  secretes  a  poison  which 
reaches  the  kidneys,  attacks  the  nervous  system,  and  acts  on 
the  heart,  the  beats  of  which  are  accelerated  or  suddenly 
arrested.  Sheltered  in  the  membrane  like  a  foe  in  an  ambush, 
the  microbe  manufactures  its  deadly  poison.  Diphtheria,  as 
defined  by  M.  Eoux,  is  an  intoxication  caused  by  a  very  active 
poison  formed  by  the  microbe  within  the  restricted  area 
wherein  it  develops. 


1889—1895  455 

It  was  sufficient  to  examine  a  portion  of  diphtheritic 
membrane  to  distinguish  the  diphtheritic  bacilli,  tiny  rods 
resembling  short  needles  laid  across  each  other.  Other 
microbes  were  frequently  associated  with  these  bacilli,  and  it 
became  necessary  to  study  microbian  associations  in  diphtheria. 
The  Klebs-Loeffler  bacillus,  disseminated  in  broth,  gave 
within  a  month  or  three  weeks  a  richly  toxic  culture ;  the 
bottom  of  the  vessel  was  covered  with  a  thick  deposit  of 
microbes,  and  a  film  of  younger  bacilli  floated  on  the  surface. 
By  filtering  this  broth  and  freeing  it  from  microbes,  Messrs. 
Eoux  and  Yersin  made  a  great  discovery  :  they  obtained  pure 
toxin,  capable  of  killing,  in  forty-eight  hours,  a  guinea-pig 
inoculated  with  one-tenth  of  a  cubic  centimetre  of  it. 

Now  that  the  toxin  was  found,  the  remedy,  the  antitoxin, 
could  be  discovered.  This  was  done  by  Behring,  a  German 
scientist,  and  by  Kitasato,  a  Japanese  physician.  Drs.  Eichet 
and  Hericourt  had  already  opened  the  way  in  1888,  while 
studying  another  disease. 

M.  Eoux  inoculated  a  horse  with  diphtheritic  toxin  miti- 
gated by  the  addition  of  iodine,  in  doses,  very  weak  at  first, 
but  gradually  stronger;  the  horse  grew  by  degrees  capable  of 
l^esisting  strong  doses  of  pure  toxin.  It  was  then  bled  by 
means  of  a  large  trocar  introduced  into  the  jugular  vein,  the 
blood  received  in  a  bowl  was  allowed  to  coagulate,  and  the 
liquid  part  of  it,  the  serum,  was  then  collected ;  this  serum 
was  antitoxic,  antidiphtheritic — in  one  word,  the  long-desired 
cure. 

At  the  beginning  of  1894,  M.  Eoux  had  several  horses 
rendered  immune  by  the  above  process.  He  desired  to  prove 
the  efficiency  of  the  serum  in  the  treatment  of  diphtheria,  with 
the  coUaboration  of  MM.  Martin  and  Chaillou,  who  had,  both 
chnically  and  bacteriologically,  studied  more  than  400  cases  of 
diphtheria. 

There  are  in  Paris  two  hospitals  where  diphtheritic  children 
are  taken  in.  It  was  decided  that  the  new  treatment  should 
be  apphed  at  the  hospital  of  the  Enfants  Malades,  whilst  the 
old  system  should  be  continued  at  the  Hopital  Trousseau. 

From  February  1,  MM.  Eoux,  Martin,  and  Chaillou  paid  a 
daily  visit  to  the  Enfants  Malades ;  they  treated  all  the  little 
diphtheria  patients  by  injection,  in  the  side,  of  a  dose  of  twenty 
cubic  centimetres  of  serum,  followed,  twenty-four  hours  later, 
by  another  dose  of  twenty,  or  only  of  ten  cubic  centimetres. 


456  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR     . 

Almost  invariably,  not  only  did  the  membranes  cease  to 
increase  during  the  twenty-four  hours  following  the  first  injec- 
tion, but  they  began  to  come  away  within  thirty-six  or  forty- 
eight  hours,  the  third  day  at  the  latest ;  the  livid,  leaden  pale- 
ness of  the  face  disappeared ;  the  child  was  saved. 

From  1890  to  1893  there  had  been  3,971  cases  of  diphtheria, 
fatal  in  2,029  cases,  the  average  mortality  being  therefore  51 
per  100.  The  serum  treatment,  applied  to  hundreds  of  children, 
brought  it  down  to  less  than  24  per  100  in  four  months.  At 
the  Trousseau  Hospital,  where  the  serum  was  not  employed, 
the  mortality  during  the  same  period  was  60  per  100. 

In  May,  M.  Eoux  gave  a  lecture  on  diphtheria  at  Lille,  at  the 
request  of  the  Provident  Society  of  the  Friends  of  Science, 
which  held  its  general  meeting  in  that  town.  Pasteur,  who 
was  president  of  the  Society,  came  to  Lille  to  thank  its  inhabi- 
tants for  the  support  they  had  afforded  for  forty  years  to  the 
Society. 

The  master  and  his  disciple  were  received  in  the  Hall  of  the 
Industrial  Society.  Pasteur  listened  with  an  admiring  emotion 
to  his  pupil,  whose  rigorous  experimentation,  together  with  the 
beauty  of  the  object  in  view,  filled  him  with  enthusiasm.  He 
who  had  said,  "  Exhaust  every  combination,  until  the  mind 
can  conceive  no  others  possible,"  was  delighted  to  hear  the 
methodical  exposition  of  the  manner  in  which  this  great  problem 
had  been  attacked  and  solved. 

At  the  Hygiene  and  Demography  Congress  at  Buda-Pesth, 
M.  Eoux,  repeating  and  enlarging  his  lecture,  made  a  communi- 
cation on  the  serotherapy  of  diphtheria  which  created  a  great 
sensation  in  Europe. 

In  France,  prefects  asked  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  how 
local  physicians  might  obtain  this  antidiphtheritic  serum.  The 
Figaro  newspaper  opened  a  subscription  towards  preserving 
children  from  croup ;  it  soon  reached  more  than  a  million  francs. 
The  Pasteur  Institute  was  now  able  to  build  stables,  buy  a 
hundred  horses,  render  them  immune,  and  constitute  a  per- 
manent organization  for  serotherapy.  In  three  months,  50,000 
doses  of  serum  were  about  to  be  given  away. 

Pasteur,  who  was  then  at  Arbois,  followed  every  detail  with 
passionate  interest.  Sitting  under  the  old  quinces  in  his  little 
garden,  he  read  the  lists  of  subscribers,  names  of  little  children, 
offering  charitable  gifts  as  they  entered  this  life,  and  names  of 
sorrowing  parents,  giving  in  the  names  of  dear  lost  ones. 


1889—1895  457 

When  he  started  again  for  Paris,  October  4,  1894,  Pasteur 
was  seized  again  with  the  melancholy  feeling  which  had 
attended  his  first  departure  from  his  home,  when  he  was  sixteen 
years  old.  He  saw  the  same  grey  sky,  the  same  fine  rain  and 
misty  horizon,  as  he  looked  for  the  last  time  upon  the  distant 
hills  and  wide  plains  he  loved,  perhaps  conscious  that  it  was 
so.  But  he  remained  silent,  as  was  his  wont  when  troubled  by 
his  thoughts,  his  sadness  only  revealing  itself  to  those  who 
lovingly  watched  every  movement  of  his  countenance. 

On  October  6,  the  Pasteur  Institute  was  invaded  by  a  crowd 
of  medical  men ;  M.  Martin  gave  a  special  lecture  in  compliance 
with  the  desire  of  many  practitioners  unaccustomed  to  labora- 
tory work,  who  desired  to  understand  the  diagnosis  of  diphtheria 
and  the  mode  in  which  the  serum  should  be  used.  Pasteur, 
from  his  study  window,  was  watching  all  this  coming  and  going 
in  his  Institute.  A  twofold  feeling  was  visible  on  his  worn 
features  :  a  sorrowing  regret  that  his  age  now  disarmed  him  for 
work,  but  also  the  satisfaction  of  feeling  that  his  work  was 
growing  day  by  day,  and  that  other  investigators  would,  in  a 
similar  spirit,  pursue  the  many  researches  which  remained  to 
be  undertaken.  About  that  time,  M.  Yersin,  now  a  physician 
in  the  colonies,  communicated  to  the  Annals  of  the  Pasteur 
Institute  the  discovery  of  the  plague  bacillus.  He  had  been 
desired  to  go  to  China  in  order  to  study  the  nature  of  the 
scourge,  its  conditions  of  propagation,  and  the  most  efficient 
means  of  preventing  it  from  attacking  the  French  possessions. 
Pasteur  had  long  recognized  very  great  qualities  in  this  pupil 
whose  habits  of  silent  labour  were  almost  those  of  an  ascete. 
M.  Yersin  started  with  a  missionary's  zeal.  When  he  reached 
Hong-Kong,  three  hundred  Chinese  had  aheady  succumbed, 
and  the  hospitals  of  the  colony  were  full ;  he  immediately  recog- 
nized the  symptoms  of  the  bubonic  plague,  which  had  ravaged 
Europe  on  many  occasions.  He  noticed  that  the  epidemic 
raged  principally  in  the  slums  occupied  by  Chinese  of  the  poorer 
classes,  and  that  in  the  infected  quarters  there  were  a  great 
many  rats  which  had  died  of  the  plague.  Pasteur  read  with 
the  greatest  interest  the  following  lines,  so  exactly  in  accord- 
ance with  his  own  method  of  observation  :  ' '  The  peculiar  apti- 
tude to  contract  plague  possessed  by  certain  animals,"  wrote 
M.  Yersin,  "  enabled  me  to  undertake  an  experimental  study 
of  the  disease  under  very  f  avouxable  circumstances ;  it  was 
obvious  that  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  look  for  a  microbe  in 


458  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

the  blood  of  the  patients  and  in  the  bubonic  pulp."  When 
M.  Yersiu  inoculated  rats,  mice,  or  guinea-pigs  with  this  pulp, 
the  animals  died,  and  he  found  several  bacilli  in  the  ganglions, 
spleen,  and  blood.  After  some  attempts  at  cultures  and  inocula- 
tions, he  concluded  thus  :  "  The  plague  is  a  contagious  and 
inoculable  disease.  It  seems  likely  that  rats  constitute  its 
principal  vehicle,  but  I  have  also  ascertained  that  flies  can 
contract  the  disease  and  die  of  it,  and  may  therefore  become 
agents  for  its  transmission." 

At  the  very  time  when  M.  Yersin  was  discovering  the  specific 
bacillus  of  the  plague  in  the  bubonic  pulp,  Kitasato  was  making 
similar  investigations.  The  foe  now  being  recognized,  hopes 
of  vanquishing  it  might  be  entertained. 

And  whilst  those  good  tidings  were  arriving,  Pasteur  was 
reading  a  new  work  by  M.  Metchnikoff,  a  Kussian  scientist, 
who  had  elected  to  come  to  France  for  the  privilege  of  working 
by  the  side  of  Pasteur.  M.  Metchnikoff  explained  by  the 
action  of  the  white  corpuscles  of  the  blood,  named  "  leuco- 
cytes," the  immunity  or  resistance,  either  natural  or  acquired, 
of  the  organism  against  a  defined  disease.  These  corpuscles 
may  be  considered  as  soldiers  entrusted  with  the  defence  of  the 
organism  against  foreign  invasions.  If  microbes  penetrate  into 
the  tissues,  the  defenders  gather  all  their  forces  together  and  a 
free  fight  ensues.  The  organism  resists  or  succumbs  accord- 
ing to  the  power  or  inferiority  of  the  white  blood-cells.  If  the 
invading  microbe  is  surrounded,  eaten  up,  and  ingested  by  the 
victorious  white  corpuscles  (also  named  phagocytes),  the  latter 
find  in  their  victory  itself  fresh  reserve  forces  against  a  renewed 
invasion. 

On  November  1,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  laborious  activity 
and  daily  progress,  Pasteur  was  about  to  ]3ay  his  daily  visit 
to  his  grandchildren,  when  he  was  seized  by  a  violent  attack  of 
uraemia.  He  was  laid  on  his  bed,  and  remained  nearly  uncon- 
scious for  four  hours ;  the  sweat  of  agony  bathed  his  forehead 
and  his  whole  body,  and  his  eyes  remained  closed.  The  even- 
ing brought  with  it  a  ray  of  hope;  he  was  able  to  speak,  and 
asked  not  to  be  left  alone.  Immediate  danger  seemed  avoided, 
but  great  anxiety  continued  to  be  felt. 

It  was  easy  to  organize  a  series  of  devoted  nurses ;  all 
Pasteur's  disciples  were  eager  to  watch  by  his  bedside.  Every 
evening,  two   persons  took  their  seats  in  his  room  :   one  a 


1889—1895  459 

member  of  the  family,  and  one  a  "Pastorian."  About  one 
a.m.  they  were  replaced  by  another  Pastorian  and  another 
member  of  the  family.  Prom  November  1  to  December  25,  the 
laboratory  workers  continued  this  watching,  regulated  by  Dr. 
Eoux  as  follows  :  — 

Sunday  night,  Eoux  and  Chantemesse  ;  Monday,  Queyrat  and 
Marmier;  Tuesday,  Borrel  and  Martin;  Wednesday,  Mesnil 
and  Pottevin ;  Thursday,  Marchoux  and  Viala ;  Friday,  Cal- 
mette  and  Veillon  ;  Saturday,  Eenon  and  Morax.  A  few  altera- 
tions were  made  in  this  order ;  Dr.  Marie  claimed  the  privilege. 
M.  Metchnikoff,  full  of  anxiety,  came  and  went  continually 
from  the  laboratory  to  the  master's  room.  After  the  day's 
work,  each  faithful  watcher  came  in,  bringing  books  or  notes, 
to  go  on  with  the  work  begun,  if  the  patient  should  be  able  to 
sleep.  In  the  middle  of  the  night,  Mme.  Pasteur  would 
come  in  and  send  away  with  a  sweet  authority  one  of  the  two 
volunteer  nurses.  Pasteur's  loving  and  faithful  wife  was 
straining  every  faculty  of  her  valiant  and  tender  soul  to  conjure 
the  vision  of  death  which  seemed  so  near.  In  spite  of  all  her 
courage,  there  were  hours  of  weakness,  at  early  dawn,  when 
life  was  beginning  to  revive  in  the  quiet  neighbourhood,  when 
she  could  not  keep  her  tears  from  flowing  silently.  Would 
they  succeed  in  saving  him  whose  life  was  so  precious,  so 
useful  to  others?  In  the  morning,  Pasteur's  two  grand- 
children came  into  the  bedroom.  The  little  girl  of  fourteen, 
fully  realizing  the  prevailing  anxiety,  and  rendered  serious 
by  the  sorrow  she  struggled  to  hide,  talked  quietly  with 
him.  The  little  boy,  only  eight  years  old,  climbed  on  to  his 
grandfather's  bed,  kissing  him  affectionately  and  gazing  on 
the  loved  face  which  always  found  enough  strength  to  smile 
at  him. 

Dr.  Chantemesse  attended  Pasteur  with  an  incomparable 
devotion.  Dr.  Gille,  who  had  often  been  sent  for  by  Pasteur 
when  staying  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  came  to  Paris  from 
Garches  to  see  him.  Professor  Guyon  showed  his  colleague 
the  most  affectionate  solicitude.  Professor  Dieulafoy  was 
brought  in  one  morning  by  M.  Metchnikoff ;  Professor 
Grancher,  who  was  ill  and  away  from  Paris,  hurried  back  to 
his  master's  side. 

How  often  did  they  hang  over  him,  anxiously  following  the 
respiratory  rhythm  due  to  the  urgemic  intoxication  !  movements 
slow  at  first,  then  rapid,  accelerated,  gasping,  slackening  again, 


460  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

and  arrested  in  a  long  pause  of  several  seconds,  during  which 
all  seemed  suspended. 

At  the  end  of  December,  a  marked  improvement  took  place. 
On  January  1,  after  seeing  all  his  collaborators,  down  to  the 
youngest  laboratory  attendant,  Pasteur  received  the  visit  of 
one  of  his  colleagues  of  the  Academic  Frangaise.  It  was  Alex- 
andre Dumas,  carrying  a  bunch  of  roses,  and  accompanied  by 
one  of  his  daughters.  "  I  want  to  begin  the  year  well,"  he 
said:  "  I  am  bringing  you  my  good  wishes."  Pasteur  and 
Alexandre  Dumas,  meeting  at  the  Academy  every  Thursday 
for  twelve  years,  felt  much  attraction  towards  each  other. 
Pasteur,  charmed  from  the  first  by  this  dazzling  and  witty  in- 
tellect, had  been  surprised  and  touched  by  the  delicate  attentions 
of  a  heart  which  only  opened  to  a  chosen  few.  Dumas,  who 
had  observed  many  men,  loved  and  admired  Pasteur,  a  modest 
and  kindly  genius  ;  for  this  dramatic  author  hid  a  man  thirsting 
for  moral  action,  his  realism  was  lined  with  mysticism,  and  he 
placed  the  desire  to  be  useful  above  the  hunger  for  fame.  His 
blue  eyes,  usually  keen  and  cold,  easily  detecting  secret 
thoughts  and  looking  on  them  with  irony,  were  full  of  an  ex- 
pression of  affectionate  veneration  when  they  rested  on  ' '  our 
dear  and  great  Pasteur,"  as  he  called  him.  Alexandre  Dumas' 
visit  gave  Pasteur  very  great  pleasure  ;  he  compared  it  to  a  ray 
of  sunshine. 

As  he  could  not  go  out,  those  who  did  not  come  to  see  him 
thought  him  worse  than  he  really  was.  It  was  therefore  with 
great  surprise  that  people  heard  that  he  would  be  pleased  to 
receive  the  old  Normaliens,  who  were  about  to  celebrate  the 
centenary  of  their  school,  and  who,  after  putting  up  a  memorial 
plate  on  the  small  laboratory  of  the  Kue  d'Ulm,  desired  to  visit 
the  Pasteur  Institute.  They  filed  one  after  another  into  the 
drawing-room  on  the  first  floor.  Pasteur,  seated  by  the  fire, 
seemed  to  revive  the  old  times  when  he  used  to  welcome  young 
men  into  his  home  circle  on  Sunday  evenings.  He  had  an 
affectionate  word  or  a  smile  for  each  of  those  who  now  passed 
before  him,  bowing  low.  Every  one  was  struck  with  the  keen 
expression  of  his  eyes ;  never  had  the  strength  of  his  intellect 
seemed  more  independent  of  the  weakness  of  his  body.  Many 
believed  in  a  speedy  recovery  and  rejoiced.  "Your  health," 
said  some  one,  "  is  not  only  national  but  universal  property." 
On  that  day.  Dr.  Eoux  had  arranged  on  tables,  in  the  large 


1889—1895  461 

laboratory,  the  little  flasks  which  Pasteur  had  used  in  his  ex- 
periments on  so-called  spontaneous  generation ,  which  had  been 
religiously  preserved ;  also  rows  of  little  tubes  used  for  studies 
on  wines ;  various  preparations  in  various  culture  media ; 
microbes  and  bacilli,  so  numerous  that  it  was  difficult  to  know 
which  to  see  first.  The  bacteria  of  diphtheria  and  bubonic 
plague  completed  this  museum. 

Pasteur  was  carried  into  the  laboratory  about  twelve  o'clock, 
and  Dr.  Eoux  showed  his  master  the  plague  bacillus  through 
a  microscope.  Pasteur,  looking  at  these  things,  souvenirs  of 
his  own  work  and  results  of  his  pupils'  researches,  thought  of 
those  disciples  who  were  continuing  his  task  in  various  parts 
of  the  world.  In  France,  he  had  just  sent  Dr.  Calmette  to 
Lille,  where  he  soon  afterwards  created  a  new  and  admirable 
Pasteur  Institute.  Dr.  Yersin  was  continuing  his  investiga- 
tions in  China.  A  Normalien,  M.  Le  Dantec,  who  had  entered 
.the  Ecole  at  sixteen  at  the  head  of  the  list,  and  who  had  after- 
wards become  a  curator  at  the  laboratory,  was  in  Brazil,  study- 
ing yellow  fever,  of  which  he  very  nearly  died.  Dr.  Adrien 
Loir,  after  a  protracted  mission  in  Australia,  was  head  of  a 
Pasteur  Institute  at  Tunis.  Dr.  Nicolle  was  setting  up  a 
laboratory  of  bacteriology  at  Constantinople.  "There  is  still 
a  great  deal  to  do  !  "  sighed  Pasteur  as  he  affectionately  pressed 
Dr.  Eoux'  hand. 

He  was  more  than  ever  full  of  a  desire  to  allay  human  suffer- 
ing, of  a  humanitarian  sentiment  which  made  of  him  a  citizen 
of  the  world.  But  his  love  for  France  was  in  no  wise  diminished, 
and  the  permanence  of  his  patriotic  feelings  was,  soon  after 
this,  revealed  by  an  incident.  The  Berlin  Academy  of  Sciences 
was  preparing  a  list  of  illustrious  contemporary  scientists  to  be 
submitted  to  the  Kaiser  with  a  view  to  conferring  on  them  the 
badge  of  the  Order  of  Merit.  As  Pasteur's  protest  and  return 
of  his  diploma  to  the  Bonn  University  had  not  been  forgotten, 
the  Berlin  Academy,  before  placing  his  name  on  the  list,  de- 
sired to  know  whether  he  would  accept  this  distinction  at  the 
hands  of  the  German  Emperor.  Pasteur,  while  acknowledging 
with  courteous  thanks  the  honour  done  to  him  as  a  scientist, 
declared  that  he  could  not  accept  it. 

For  him,  as  for  Victor  Hugo,  the  question  of  Alsace-Lor- 
raine was  a  question  of  humanity ;  the  right  of  peoples  to 
dispose  of  themselves  was  in  question.  And  by  a  bitter  irony 
of  Fate,  France,  which  had  proclaimed  this  principle  all  over 


462  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

Europe,  saw  Alsace  torn  away  from  her.  And  by  whom?  by 
the  very  nation  whom  she  had  looked  upon  as  the  most  ideal- 
istic, with  whom  she  had  desired  an  alliance  in  a  noble  hope 
of  pacific  civilization,  a  hope  shared  by  Humboldt,  the  great 
German  scientist. 

It  was  obvious  to  those  who  came  near  Pasteur  that,  in  spite 
of  the  regret  caused  in  him  by  the  decrease  of  his  physical 
strength,  his  moral  energy  remained  unimpaired.  He  never 
complained  of  the  state  of  his  health,  and  usually  avoided  speak- 
ing of  himself.  A  little  tent  had  been  put  up  for  him  in  the 
new  garden  of  the  Pasteur  Institute,  under  the  young  chest- 
nuts, the  flowers  of  which  were  now  beginning  to  fall,  and 
he  often  spent  his  afternoons  there.  One  or  other  of  those 
who  had  watched  over  him  through  the  long  winter  nights  fre- 
quently came  to  talk  with  him,  and  he  would  inquire,  with  all 
his  old  interest,  into  every  detail  of  the  work  going  on. 

His  old  friend  Chappuis,  now  Honorary  Eector  of  the  Aca- 
demy of  Dijon,  often  came  to  sit  with  him  under  this  tent. 
Their  friendship  remained  unchanged  though  it  had  lasted 
more  than  fifty  years.  Their  conversation  now  took  a  yet 
more  exalted  turn  than  in  the  days  of  their  youth  and  middle 
age.  The  dignity  of  Chappius'  life  was  almost  austere,  though 
tempered  by  a  smiling  philosophy. 

Pasteur,  less  preoccupied  than  Chappuis  by  philosophical 
discussions,  soared  without  an  effort  into  the  domain  of  spirit- 
ual things.  Absolute  faith  in  God  and  in  Eternity,  and  a  con- 
viction that  the  power  for  good  given  to  us  in  this  world  will 
be  continued  beyond  it,  were  feelings  which  pervaded  his  whole 
life  ;  the  virtues  of  the  Gospel  had  ever  been  present  to  him. 
Full  of  respect  for  the  form  of  religion  which  had  been  that 
of  his  forefathers,  he  came  to  it  simply  and  naturally  for  spirit- 
ual help  in  these  last  weeks  of  his  life. 

On  June  13,  he  came,  for  the  last  time,  down  the  steps  of 
the  Pasteur  Institute,  and  entered  the  carriage  which  was  to 
take  him  to  Villeneuve  I'Etang.  Every  one  spoke  to  him  of 
this  stay  as  if  it  were  sure  to  bring  him  back  to  health.  Did  he 
believe  it?  Did  he  try,  in  his  tenderness  for  those  around  him, 
to  share  their  hopes?  His  face  almost  bore  the  same  expres- 
sion as  when  he  used  to  go  to  Villeneuve  I'Etang  to  continue  his 
studies.  When  the  carriage  passed  through  Saint  Cloud,  some 
of  the  inhabitants,  who  had  seen  him  pass  in  former  years, 


1889—1895  463 

saluted  him  with  a  mixture  of  emotion  and  respectful 
interest. 

At  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  the  old  stables  of  the  Cent  Gardes 
had  reverted  to  their  former  purpose  and  were  used  for  the 
preparation  of  the  diphtheria  antitoxin.  There  were  about 
one  hundred  horses  there ;  old  chargers ,  sold  by  the  military 
authorities  as  unfit  for  further  work ;  racehorses  thus  ending 
their  days ;  a  few,  presents  from  their  owners,  such  as  Marshal 
Canrobert's  old  horse. 

Pasteur  spent  those  summer  weeks  in  his  room  or  under  the 
trees  on  the  lawns  of  the  Park.  A  few  horses  had  been  put 
out  to  grass,  the  stables  being  quite  full,  and  occasionally  came 
near,  looking  over  their  hurdles  towards  him.  Pasteur  felt 
a  deep  thankfulness  in  watching  the  busy  comings  and  goings 
of  Dr.  Eoux  and  his  curator,  M.  Martin,  and  of  the  veterinary 
surgeon,  M.  Prevot,  who  was  entrusted  with  the  bleeding 
operations  and  the  distribution  of  the  flasks  of  serum.  He 
thought  of  all  that  would  survive  him  and  felt  that  his  weakened 
hand  might  now  drop  the  torch  which  had  set  so  many  others 
alight.  And,  more  than  resigned,  he  sat  peacefully  under  a 
beautiful  group  of  pines  and  purple  beeches,  listening  to  the 
readings  of  Mme.  Pasteur  and  of  his  daughter.  They  smiled 
on  him  with  that  valiant  smile  which  women  know  how  to  keep 
through  deepest  anguish. 

Biographies  interested  him  as  of  yore.  There  was  at  ihat 
time  a  renewal  of  interest  in  memories  of  the  First  Empire  ;  old 
letters,  memoirs,  war  anecdotes  were  being  published  every 
day.  Pasteur  never  tired  of  those  great  souvenirs.  Many  of 
those  stories  brought  him  back  to  the  emotions  of  his  youth, 
but  he  no  longer  looked  with  the  same  eyes  on  the  glory  of 
conquerors.  The  true  guides  of  humanity  now  seemed  to  him 
to  be  those  who  gave  devoted  service,  not  those  who  ruled  by 
might.  After  enjoying  pages  full  of  the  thrill  of  battlefields, 
Pasteur  admired  the  life  of  a  great  and  good  man,  St.  Vincent 
de  Paul.  He  loved  this  son  of  poor  peasants,  proud  to  own 
his  humble  birth  before  a  vainglorious  society ;  this  tutor  of  a 
future  cardinal,  who  desired  to  become  the  chaplain  of  some 
unhappy  convicts ;  this  priest ,  who  founded  the  work  of  the 
Enfants  Trouves,  and  who  established  lay  and  religious  alliance 
over  the  vast  domain  of  charity. 

Pasteur  himself  exerted  a  great  and  charitable  influence. 
The  unknown  lady  who  had  put  at  his  disposal  four  scholarships 


464  THE  LIFE  OF  PASTEUR 

for  young  men  without  means  came  to  him  in  August  and 
offered  him  the  funds  for  a  Pasteur  Hospital,  the  natural  out- 
come, she  said,  of  the  Pastorian  discoveries. 

Pasteur's  strength  diminished  day  by  day,  he  now  could 
hardly  walk.  When  he  was  seated  in  the  Park,  his  grand- 
children around  him  suggested  young  rose  trees  climbing 
around  the  trunk  of  a  dying  oak.  The  paralysis  was  increas- 
ing, and  speech  was  becoming  more  and  more  difficult.  The 
eyes  alone  remained  bright  and  clear ;  Pasteur  was  witnessing 
the  ruin  of  what  in  him  was  perishable. 

How  willingly  they  would  have  given  a  moment  of  their 
lives  to  prolong  his,  those  thousands  of  human  beings  whose 
existence  had  been  saved  by  his  methods  :  sick  children,  women 
in  lying-in  hospitals,  patients  operated  upon  in  surgical  wards, 
victims  of  rabid  dogs  saved  from  hydrophobia,  and  so  many 
others  protected  against  the  infinitesimally  small!  But,  whilst 
visions  of  those  living  beings  passed  through  the  minds  of  his 
family,  it  seemed  as  if  Pasteur  already  saw  those  dead  ones 
who,  like  him,  had  preserved  absolute  faith  in  the  Future  Life. 

The  last  week  in  September  he  was  no  longer  strong  enough 
to  leave  his  bed,  his  weakness  was  extreme.  On  September 
27,  as  he  was  offered  a  cup  of  milk  :  "  I  cannot,"  he  murmured  ; 
his  eyes  looked  around  him  with  an  unspeakable  expression 
of  resignation,  love  and  farewell.  His  head  fell  back  on  the 
pillows,  and  he  slept;  but,  after  this  delusive  rest,  suddenly 
came  the  gaspings  of  agony.  For  twenty-four  hours  he  re- 
mained motionless,  his  eyes  closed,  his  body  almost  entirely 
paralyzed ;  one  of  his  hands  rested  in  that  of  Mme.  Pasteur, 
the  other  held  a  crucifix. 

Thus,  surrounded  by  his  family  and  disciples,  in  this  room 
of  almost  monastic  simplicity,  on  Saturday,  September  28, 
1895,  at  4.40  in  the  afternoon,  very  peacefully,  he  passed  away. 

The  End. 


INDEX 


H  H 


INDEX 


Abba.die,    d',    presents    medals    to 

Pasteur,  449 
Abdul  Aziz,  Sultan,  141 
About,  Edmond  : 
On  Pasteur,  383 
On    Pasteur's    lecture    at    Sor- 

bonne,   122 
Pamphlet  quoted,  177 
Academie  des  Sciences,  29  note,  81 

During  siege  of  Paris,  186 
Academie  Frau9aise,  Pasteur's  re- 
ception at,  345 
Aerobes,  99 
Agrigation,  31  note 
Alais  : 

Pasteur  goes  to,    115,    117,   129, 

138,  155,  166 
Statue  to  J.  B.  Dumas  at,  446 
Alexandria,  French  mission  to,  377 
Alfort,   experiments   on  sheep    at, 

306 
Alsace-Lorraine  question,  461 
Amat,  Mile.,  170 
Anaerobes,   99,   220 
Andral,   Dr.,   160 

Advice  to  Past-eur,  247 
Anglada,    work    "On    Contagion" 

quoted,  80 
Anguillulce,  150 

Anthrax   (splenic   fever,   charbon), 
257   seqq.,   292 
Hens  and,  267,  277 

Commission  on,  278 
Vaccination  against,  311,  312 
Experiment,  315,  317,  318,  320, 

328,  367,  368 
Pvesults,  325,  367,  368 
Antirabic  inoculation  on  man,  414 

Discussion   on,   434 
Anti-vivisection,   Virchow   on,   332 
Aosta,  Duke  and  Duchess  of,  141 
Arago,  27,  356 
On  Monge,  195 


Arago  (continued)  : 

Speech  before   Chamber   of   De- 
puties, 245 

Arbois  : 

Pasteur  at,  6,  7,  180,  420,  437 
Presentation    to    Pasteur    from, 

449 
Prussians   at,   202 

Arboisian  characteristics,  8 

Arcis-sur-Aube,  battle  of,  4 

Ardeche,  32 

Ardouin,  Dr.,  380 

Aristotle,  allusions  to  hydrophobia, 
407 

Arsonval,  M.  d',  280 

Aselli,     discoveries    through    vivi- 
section, 336 

Aspartic  acid,   57,   70 

Aspergillus  niger,   204 

Aubenas,  tribute  to  Pasteur,  350, 
351 

Augier,  Emile,   174 

Aurillac,    testimonial    to    Pasteur, 
373 


"Baccalaureat,"  10  and  note 
Baciocchi,    Princess,    leaves    Villa 
Vjcentina   to   Prince   Im- 
perial,  173 
Bagnferes-de-Luchon,  104 
Balard,  lecturer  at  Ecole  Normale, 
29,  31,  56,  59,  100,  106 
Advice  to  Pasteur,  217 
Appeal  to  Pasteur,  217 
Discovers  bromin,  32 
Inspector-General      of      Higher 

Education,   145 
On  Pasteur's  discovery,  40 
Bar-sur-Aube,  3rd  Regiment  at,  3 
Barbet  Boarding  School,  10,  12,  .21 
Barbet,  M.,   10,   22 

H  h2 


468 


INDEX 


Barbier,  Captain,  10 
Barrnel,  Dumas'  Curator,  25 
Bastian,  Dr.,  attacks  Pasteur,  253 

seqq. 
Baudry,  Paul,  127 
Bazaiiie  at  Metz,  186 
Beauce,   147  note 

Splenic  fever  in,  257,  276,  284, 
314 
Bechamp,  theory  of  fermentation, 

241 

Beclard,    Permanent   Secretary  of 

Academie  de  Medecine,  309 

On  Commission  on  hydrophobia, 

395 

Beer,  Pasteur  studies  manufacture 

of,  207  seqq. 
Behier,   Dr.,   233 
Behring    discovers    antitoxin    for 

diphtheria,  455 
Bella gnet,    M.,    137 
Belle,  Jeanne,  wife  of  Claude  Pas- 
teur,   2 
Bellevue,   Chateau,   Napoleon   and 
William   of    Prussia    meet 
at,  182 
Belotti,  M,,  206 

Berchon,     sanitary    director,   Bor- 
deaux, 340 
Bergeron,  Jules  : 

Annual   Secretary    of    Academie 

de  Medecine,  309 
On    Pasteur's  treatment   of   hy- 
drophobia, 424 
Speech  at  Pasteur  Jubilee,  449 
Bernard,  Claude,  42 

At  Academie  de  Medecine,  225 
At  Tuileries,   154 
Discoveries,  135 
Experiment  on  dog,  335 
Experiments     on     fermentation, 

280 
Illness,  134 
Joins  in  Pasteur's  experiments, 

104 
Letter  to  Deville,   137 
Letter  to  Pasteur,  136 
On  fermentation,  80 

—  Medicine,  226 

—  Pasteur's  researches,  72,  87 

—  Primary  causes,  244 

—  Vivisection,  336 
Posthumous  notes,  280,  287 
Senator,  174 

Studies  cholera,   126 
Bersot,    Ernest,    quoted    on    spon- 
taneous generation,  92 


Bert,  Paul,  279,  374 

Classifies  Pasteur's  work,   375 

Experiments,  263,  392 

On  Commission  on  hydrophobia, 

395 
Speech  on  Pasteur's  discoveries, 
245,  246 
Berthelot,   M.  : 

Consulted  by  Pasteur,  439 
On  alcoholic  fermentation,  286 
Berthollet,  M.,  248,  356 

Discoveries,  195 
Bertillon,  candidate  for  Academie 

de  Medecine,  225 
Bertin,  M.,  354 

At  Ecole  Normale,  19,  145,  161, 

180,  188 
Character,  45,  145 
Professor  of  Physics,  Strasburg, 

45 
Welcomes  Pasteur  to  Paris,  212 
Bertrand,  Joseph  : 
Letters  to  Pasteur,   138 
Sketch  of,  419 

Speech  at  inauguration  of  Pas- 
teur Institute,  441 
Speech  at  Pasteur  Jubilee,  449 
Berzelius,  195 

Studies  paratartaric  acid,  25 
Theories  of  fermentation,  80,  241 
Besan9on,  Jean  Henri  Pasteur  at, 

2,  4 
Besson,    candidature    for    Senate, 

249 
Beust,  Baron  von,  superintendent 

of  factories,  65 
Bigo   manufactures   beetroot   alco- 
hol, 79 
Biot,  J.  J.,  27,  42,  55,  59,  204 
Attitude     towards     spontaneous 

generation,  89,  100 
Death,  101,  102 
Interview  with  Pasteur,  41 
Last  letter,  103 
Letters  to  Joseph   Pasteur,   57, 

58,  71,  81 
Letter  to  Louis  Pasteur,  59 
Oldest  member  of  Institute,  81 
Passion  for  reading,  89 
Praises  Pasteur,  55 
Biot,   M.,  veterinary    surgeon,    at 
Pouillv     le     Fort     experi- 
ment,'310,  320 
Bischoffsheim,  Raphael,  lends  villa 

to  Pasteur,  433 
Bismarck,  Prince  : 

Armistice  with  France,  193 


INDEX 


469 


Bismarck  (continued)  : 
Interview  with.  Jules  Favre,  184 
On  Napoleon  III,  182 
Blondeau,   registrar  of  mortgages, 

13 
Bollene,  Pasteur  at,  360 
Bonaparte,  Elisa,  at  Villa  Vicen- 

tina,  173 
Bonn,  sous-prefecture,   189 

University,    189 
Bonnat,  portrait  of  Pasteur,  440 
Bordeaux,  Pasteur  at,  338 
Bordighera  : 

Earthquake  at,  436 
Pasteur  at,  434 
Borrel  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Bouchardat,  M.  : 

On  Commission  of  Hygiene,  186 
Report   on    remedies   for   hydro- 
phobia, 408 
Bouillaud,  Dr.,  229,  262,  294 
Bouillier,  M.  F.,  Director  of  Ecole 

Normale,    145,   180 
Bouley,  H.,  264,  278,  323,  354 
At   experiment    on    earthworms, 

304 
Chairman     of     Commission     on 
hydrophobia,      395,      396, 
397,  398 
Report,    398 
Death,  424 
Letters  to  Pasteur,  324,  329 

—  on  Colin,  320 

—  germ  of  hydrophobia,  398 

— -  methods  of  Delafond  and 
Pasteur,  275 

—  microbes,  365,  367 

—  Pasteur's  treatment  of  hydro- 

phobia, 423 

—  remedies  for  hydrophobia,  408 
— •  virulence  of  bacteridia,  311 
Sketch  of,  262 

Statistics  of  death  from  hydro- 
phobia, 428 

Vaccinates  sheep  against  an- 
thrax, 306 

Bourbaki,    General  : 
Death,   193 

Retreat  of  Army  Corps,  192 
Bourboulon,     Commandant,     gives 

Pasteur  news  of  his  son, 

193 
Bourgeois,  Philibert,  3 
Baurrel  sends  dogs  to  laboratory, 

390,  396 
Boussingault,  M.,  354 


Boutet,    veterinary    surgeon,    261, 
283,    329 
On  splenic  fever,  276 
Report  of  vaccinated  sheep,  363 

Boutroux,     curator     in     Pasteur's 
laboratory,   255 

Boyle,    Robert,    on    fermentation, 
223 

Brand,  Dr.,  treatment  of  typhoid, 
364 

Breithaupt,   Professor   of  Minera- 
logy, 65 

Bretonneau,   on  diphtheria,   453 

Brie  cattle   suffer   from    anthrax, 
257,  314 

Brochin,    candidate   for  Academie 
de  Medecine,  225 

Brongniart,  Alexandre,  42 

On    Commission    on  spontaneous 
generation,  106 

Brouardel,    Professor  : 

On  antirabic  cure,  434,  437 
Speech  at  Congress  of  Hygiene, 

446 
Speech  at  Pasteur  Jubilee,  449 

Broussais,  surgery  under,  235 

Bruce,  Mrs.,  presents  Pasteur  with 
Life  of  Livingstone,  389 

Buda-Pesth,    Hygiene    and   Demo- 
graphy Congress  at,   456 

Budberg,  M.  de,  Russian  Ambassa- 
dor, 127 

Budin  and  antisepsis,  290 

Buffon,     theory     of     spontaneous 
generation,  90 

Buonanni,    recipe    for    producing 
worms,  89 

Butyric  fermentation,  99 

O 

Cagniard-Latour  studies  yeast,  80, 

81 
Cailletet     invents     apparatus     for 
liquefaction  of  gases,  384 
Cairo,  cholera  at,  377 
Calmette,   Edouard  : 
At  Lille,   461 
At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  447 
Attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Cambon,       Governor  -  General      of 
Algeria,  letter  to  Pasteur, 
451 
Cardaillac,  M.  de,  163 
Cardinal  cultivates  silkworms,  139 
Carnot,  President,  248 

At  inauguration  of  Pasteur  In- 
stitute, 440 


470 


INDEX 


Carnot,    President  (continued)  : 

At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  448 
Caro,  deputy  to  Edinburgh,  384 
Casabianca,  Comte  de,  168,  169 
Celsus  on  hydrophobia,  407,  409 
Chaffois,  192,  193 
Chaillou    collaborates    with   Roux, 

455 
Chamalieres  brewery,  207 
Chamberland,  M.  : 

At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  447 
Collaborates  with  Pasteur,   260, 
269,    271,    283,    289,    303, 
305,    306,    308,    311,    317, 
319,  321,  359,  420,  424 
Cross  of  Legion  of  Honour,  326 
On    Pasteur's    early    researches, 

445 
Vaccinations     against     anthrax, 
440 
Chambery,   Pasteur  at,   131 
Chamecin,  wood  merchant,  3 
Chamonix,  Pasteur  at,  97 
Chantemesse,  Dr.  : 

Attends  on  Pasteur,  459,  460 
On   antirabic  cure,   434 
Performs  inoculations,  432 
Chanzy,  General,  open  letter,  190 
Chappuis,  Charles,  33 
Letter  to  Pasteur,   20 
On  national  testimonial  to  Pas- 
teur, 246 
Sketch  of,  18 
Visits  Pasteur,  462 
Chaptal,  discoveries  of,  195 
Charbon.     (See    Anthrax) 
Charcot     on     Pasteur's     antirabic 

cure,  438 
Charriere,    schoolfellow    of    Louis 

Pasteur,  7,  37 
Charrin,    Dr.,    performs    inocula- 
tions, 432 
Chartres  : 

Experiment       on       vaccination 
against  anthrax  near,  328 
Pasteur  at,  284,  303 
Scientific  congress  at,  276 
Chassaignac,   Dr.,   on   "laboratory 

surgery,"    228 
Chauveau  on  contagion,  366 
Chemists  and  Physicians,  224,  233 
Chevreul,  M.,  59 

On  siege  of  Paris,  188,  189 
Chicken  cholera,  297  seqq. 
Chiozza,  letter  to  Pasteur,  200 
Cholera,  126 

At  Damietta  and  Cairo,  378 


Christen,  town  councillor  at  Vau- 

cresson,  406 
Christophle,    speech    at    inaugura- 
tion of  Pasteur  Institute, 
441 
Clermont  Ferrand,  Pasteur  at,  206 
Clouet    invents    system    of    manu- 
facturing   steel,    195 
Coblentz,   prefecture,   189 
Cochin,  Denys,  at  Pasteur  Jubilee, 

448 
Colin,  Professor  G.,  277,  278 
Advice  to  Biot,  319 
Experiments    on    anthrax,    264, 
267,  268 
College  de'  France,  40  note,  146 
Compiegne,  Pasteur  at,  127 
Comte,  Auguste,  124,  125 

Doctrine,  342 
Conseil-General     de    departement, 

78  note 
Contagious    diseases,    problem    of, 

223  seqq. 
Conti,    Napoleon    Ill's   secretary, 

153 
Copenhagen      Medical      Congress, 

Pasteur  at,  398 
Coquelin  : 

Acts  in  Plaideurs,  128 
Recites  at  Trocadero  fete,  431 
Cornil,  on  acarus  of  itch,  366 
Coulon,  schoolfellow  of  Louis  Pas- 
teur,   7,   36 
Cribier,   Mme.,   161 
Cuisance  River,  6,  7,  181 
Cuvier,  356 


D 


Daguerre,  national  testimonial  to, 

245 
Dalimier,    Paul,   Pasteur's   advice 

to,  109 
Dalloz,  editor  of  Moniteur,  153 
Damietta,  cholera  at,  378 
Darboux,   "  doyen "   of  Faculty  of 

Science,  31 
Daremberg,    Dr.,    on    Pasteur    at 

Medical   Congress,   332 
Darlay  as  science  master,  14 
Darwin  : 

On  earthworms,  304 
On  vivisection,  337 
Dastre,  M.,  279 

Daubree,  speech  at  Pasteur  Jubi- 
lee, 449 


INDEX 


471 


Daunas,  sketch  of,  14 
David,  Jeanne,  wife  of  Denis  Pas- 
teur, 1 
Davaine,  Dr.  C,  272,  278,  354 
At    experiment    on    earthworms, 

304 
Experiments  on  septicaemia,  229, 

265 
On  butyric  ferment,  228,  258 
Davy,  Sir  H.,  195 
Debray,  M.,  327 

Declat,  Dr.,   on  Pasteur's  experi- 
ments, 223 
Prescribes  carbolic  solution    for 
wounds,  239 
Delafond,    Dr.  : 

On  cbarbon  blood,  258 
Studies  anthrax,  275 
Delaf osse,  Professor  of  Mineralogy, 

33,  36 
Delaunay  acts  in  Plaideurs,  128 
Delesse,    Professor    of    Science    at 

Besan9on,  45 
Delort,  General  Baron,  30 

Native  of  Arbois,  202 
Demarquay,    Dr.,    prescribes    car- 
bolic solution  for  wounds, 
239 
Denmark,  King  and  Queen  of,  at 

Medical  Congress,  399 
Denonvilliers,  surgery  under,  285 
Departements,  52  note 
Descartes  in  Holland,  200 
Despeyroux,  Professor  of  Chemis- 
try, 171 
Dessaignes,  chemist,  70 
Deville,   Henri   Sainte   Claire,   42, 
45,  137,  160 
Admiration    for    Pasteur's    pre- 
cision,  287 
At  Compiegne,   162 
At  Tuileries,  154 
Character,  146 

Congratulates  Pasteur  on  Testi- 
monial, 246 
Death,  327 
Laboratory,  84 
Letter  to  Mme.  Pasteur,  174 
On  Academie  and  Science,  196 
On  Commission  of  Hygi-ene,  186 
Scientific   mission   in    Germany, 

179 
Studies  cholera,  126 
Devise,  speech  at  Pasteur  Jubilee, 

449 
Diabetes,  135 


Diderot    on    spontaneous    genera- 
tion, 90 
Didon,  gratitude  to  Pasteur,  144, 

161 
Dieffenbach,  M.,  335 
Dieulafoy,  Professor,  attends  Pas- 
teur, 459 
Diphtheria,  453 

Statistics  of  mortality,  456 
Disraeli   quoted  on   public  health, 

446 
Dole: 

Jean  Joseph  Pasteur  settles  at, 

5 
Memorial     plate     on     Pasteur's 

house  at,  376 
Presentation    to    Pasteur    from, 
450 
Douay  village,  1 
Doucet,      Camille,      on     Pasteur's 

speech,    345 
Dresden,  Pasteur  at,  65 
Droz,  Joseph,  his  moral  doctrine, 

16 
Dubois,    Alphee,    engraves    medal 

for   Pasteur,   354 
Dubois,  Paul,  127 

Bust  of  Pasteur,  401 
Duboue,  Dr.,  theory  on  hydropho- 
bia, 393 
Due,  Viollet  le,   127,  128 
Du  Camp,  Maxime,  346 
Duchartre      elected      member      of 

Academie,  100 
Duclaux,  M.,    102,   103,  104,   131, 
138,  169,  170,  204,  205 
Accompanies  Pasteur  to  Milan, 

250 
Advice   to    Pasteur,    217 
Annals  of  Pasteur  Institute,  434 
At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  448 
Class    of     biological    chemistry, 

440 
Congratulates  Pasteur  on  testi- 
monial, 246 
On  Bastian,  253 
On  heating  liquids,  255 
Professor  of  Chemistry  at  Cler- 
mont Ferrand,  206 
Ducret,  Antoine  and  Charles,  shot, 

202 
Ducrot,  General,  155 
Dujardin-Beaumetz,    on    antirabic 

cure,  434 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  106,  107 
Pasteur   and,  341 
Visits  Pasteur,  460 


472 


INDEX 


Dumas,  J.  B.,  418 
Academie   sponsor    for    Pasteur, 

344 
Advice  to  Pasteur,  89,  103 
Appreciation  of  Pasteur,  252 
At  Alais,  170 
Death,    384 

Interest  in  sericiculture,  117 
La  Vie  d'un  Savant,  383  note; 

letter  on,  383 
Laboratory,   42 
Letter  to  Bouley,  312 
Letters  to  Pasteur,  60,  166,  169 
On  Academie  and  Science,  196 

—  Commission    on    spontaneous 

generation,  106 

—  Critical  Examination,  287 

—  Destruction  of  Regnault's  in- 

struments, 191 

—  Fermentation,  79,  80 
Presents    Pasteur    to    Napoleon 

III,  104 

President     of     Monetary     Com- 
mission, 145 

Requests  Pasteur  for  article  on 
Lavoisier,  121,  122 

Senator,    174 

Sketch  of,  356 

Sorbonne  lecturer,  21,  25,  40,  44, 
55,  59 

Speech  at  Peclet's  tomb,  328 

Speech  to  Pasteur,  354 

Statue  at  Alais  to,  446 
Dumont,  Dr.,  8 
Dupuy,  Charles,  speech  at  Pasteur 

Jubilee,  448 
Duran,   Carolus,   portrait   of   Pas- 
teur, 439 
Duruy,  M.,  106 

At  inauguration  of  Pasteur  In- 
stitute, 441 

At  Tuileries,  154 

Attitude  towards  Germany,  178 

Letter  to  Pasteur,  139 

Minister  of   Public  Instruction, 
130 

System   of   National  Education, 
140 

Visits  Pasteur,  165 


E 

Earthworms,  pathogenic  action  of, 

304 
Eastern  Army  Corps,  192,  193 
Ecnle  Normale,  10  and  note,  154 
An  ambulance,  180,  188 


EcoJe  Normale  (continued)  : 
Disturbances  at,  143 
Scientific  Annals  of,  110 
Students  enlist,  180 
Ecole  Polytechnique,  43  note,  154 
Edelfeldt,  portrait  of  Pasteur,  440 
Eggs,  researches  on  alteration  of, 

231 
Ehrenberg,      discoveries      on      in- 

fusories,  214 
Electric  telegraph,  birth   of,   76 
Elsinore,  congress  visit,  402 
Emperor  of  Brazil,  interest  in  Pas- 
teur's experiments,  403 
Empress  Eugenie  : 
At  Bordighera,  436 
Interview  with  Pasteur,  127,  128 
Regent,  182 
Enfants   Malades   hospital  :    diph- 
theritic treatment  at,  455 
English  commission  on  inoculation 
for  hydrophobia,  430 
Report,  437 
Erdmann,  M.,  64 
Exhibition     reward     distribution, 
141 


F 

Facvltes,  31  note 

Falloux,    attitude  towards   liberty 

of  teaching,  52 
Fauvel,    on    Pasteur's    inductions, 

369 
Fave,  General,  133,  147,  162,  163 
Favre,  Jules,  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  182 
Armistice,  193 

Interview  with  Bismarck,  184 
"  February  days,"   37  note 
Feltz  on  puerperal  fever,  292 
Fermentation,     teaching    on,     80, 
101,  222,  240 
Alcoholic,  85,  104,  113,  286 
Butyric,  99,  220,  228,  258 
Lactic,  83,  215 
of  tan,  186 
Virus,  223  seqq. 
Ferrieres    Chateau,    interview    be- 
tween       Bismarck        and 
Favre  at,  184 
Fikentscher,  obtains  racemic  acid, 

62 
Fleming,  Mr.,  430 

On    commission    on    inoculation 
for  hydrophobia,  430 
Flesschutt,  Dr.,  131 


INDEX 


473 


Fleys,     Dr.,     proposes     toast     of 
Pasteur,  373 

Flourens,   on  spontaneous  genera- 
tion, 105,  106 

Fontainebleau,  Napoleon  at,  4 

Formate  of  strontian  crystals,  50 

Fortoul,    Minister    of    Public    In- 
struction, 75 

Fouque,  M.,  327 

Fourcroy,  M.,  248 
Discoveries  of,  195 

Foy,  General,  works  of,  183 

Franco-German  War,  177  seqq. 

Franklin    on    scientific    discovery, 
76 

Frederic  III,  sketch  of,  330 

Fremy,  M.  : 

On  origin  of  ferments,  216,  218 
Theory  of  fermentation,  241 

French  character,  207 

G 

Gaidot,  Father,  12 
Gaillard,  M.  de,  361 
Galen  : 

Discoveries  through  vivisection, 

336 
Remedy  for  hydrophobia,  407 
Galtier,  experiments  on  hydropho- 
bia, 393 
Garde  Nationale,  37  note 
Gardette,  M.  de  la,  361 
Gautier,  Theophile,  125 
Gay-Lussac,  356 

Lectures  at  Jardin  des  Plantes, 

419 
Speech      before      Chamber      of 

Peers,  245 
Studies  racemic  acid,  26 
Gayon,  researches  on  alteration  of 

eggs,  231 
Geneva  Congress  of  Hygiene,  357 
Germs,  Pasteur's  theory  of,  187 
Gernez,  M.,  104  161,  166,  169,  170, 
327 
Centenary  of  Ecole  Normale,  110 
Collaborates  with  Pasteur,   130, 
138,  156,  204 
Gerome,     Knight     of     Legion     of 

Honour,  142 
GiUe,  Dr.,  attends  Pasteur,  459 
Girard  on  vineyard  labourers  and 

Pasteur,  420 
Girardin,  St.  Marc,  82 
Girod,    Henry,    Royal    Notary    of 
Salins,  1 


Glenard  adopts  Brand's  treatment 

of  typhoid,  364 
Godelier,  Dr.,  160 
Goltz,    M.    de,    Prussian    Ambas- 
sador, 127 
Gosselin,  Dr.,  240 
Got  acts  in  Flaideurs,  128 
Gounod    conducts    Ave    Maria    at 

Trocadero  fete,  431 
Grancher,  Dr.  : 

Admiration  for  Pasteur's  experi- 
ments, 417,  424 
Advises    Pasteur    to    winter    in 

South,  432 
Attends  Pasteur,  459 
On  antirabic  cure,  434 
Pasteur  consults,  415 
Performs  inoculations,  432 
Speech  at  inauguration  of  Pas- 
teur Institute,  441 
Grandeau,  M.,  327 

Letter  to  Pasteur,  341 
Graviere,    Admiral    Jurien   de   la, 

433 
Greard,  deputy  to  Edinburgh,  384 
Greece,    King    and    Queen    of,    at 

Medical  Congress,  399 
Grenet,  Pasteur's  curator,  213 
Gressier,  M.,  Minister  of  Agricul- 

culture,  275 
Grevy,    Jules,    supports    Tamisier 

and  Thurel,  248 
Gridaine,  Cunin,  Minister  of  Agri- 
culture, 275 
Gsell,     Stephane,     on     origin     of 

Seriana,  452 
Guerin,     Alphonse,    on    cause     of 

purulent  infection,    236 
Guerin,  Jules,  on  vaccine,  308 
Guillaume,     Eugene,     deputy     to 

Edinburgh,  384 
Guillemin,  M.,  77 

Schoolfellow  of  Louis  Pasteur,  7 
Guizot,  M.  : 

Deputy  to  Edinburgh,  384 
Quoted   on   spontaneous  genera- 
tion, 112 
Welcomes  Biot  to  Academie,  82 
Guyon,  Professor  : 

Accepts  Pasteur's  advice,  232 
Attends  Pasteur,  459 


Hankel,    Professor    of    Physics    at 
Leipzig,  64 


474 


INDEX 


Hardy,   M.,    welcomes   Pasteur  to 
Academie     de     Medecine, 
370 
Harvey,   discoveries  through  vivi- 
section,  336 
Hautefeuille,  M.,  327 
Heated  wine,  experiments  on,  157 
Hemiorganism,  216 
Henner,  portrait  of  Pasteur,  439 
Henri   IV   plants   mulberry  trees, 

116,  172 
Hens  and  anthrax,  267,  277 

Commission  on,  278 
Hericourt,  Dr.,  455 

At    Villeneuve   I'Etang,    445 
Herve,  Edouard,  427 
Heterogenia.       (See     Spontaneous 

generation) 
Hippocrates,    allusions    to    hydro- 
phobia, 407 
Horsley,  Victor,  secretary  to  Com- 
mission on  inoculation  for 
hydrophobia,  431,  437 
Houssaye,    Henry,    on    ovation    to 

Pasteur,  426 
Hugo,  Victor,  Annee  Terrible,  191 
Huguenin,  portrait  of  Bonaparte, 

181 
Humbert  of  Italy,  Prince,  141 
Humboldt,    Alexander   von,    inter- 
view  with   J.    B.   Dumas, 
356 
Husson,  M.,  166 

Besearches  on  Vaccine,  405 
Huxley    on    Pasteur's    discoveries, 

374,  375 
Hydrophobia  : 

Dogs    inoculated    against,    395  : 

Commission, "395,  410 
English  Commission  on  inocula- 
tion for,  430 
Report,  437 
Experiments  on,   318,   363,   383, 

390,  410  422  seqq. 
Former  remedies,  407 
Origin  of,  409 
Hygiene  : 

Central    Commission,    186 
International  Congress  of,   446 


Iceland  spar,  27 

Ingenhousz,  100 

Institut  de  France,  29  note 


Jacobsen,  J.  C,  founds  Carlsberg 

Brewery,  401 
Jacquinet,    sub-director    of    Ecole 

Normale,  84,  144,  145 
Jaillard,  experiments  on  anthrax, 

258,  261 
Jamin,  M.,  354 

On  heterogeuist  dispute,  111 
Jarry,  Claude,  royal  notary,  2 
Jenner,  national  rewards  to,  374 
Joinville,  Prince  de,  53  and  note 
Joly,  Nicolas,  professor  of  physio- 
logy,   Toulouse,    95,    104, 

138,  216,  255 
Demands    Commission    on    spon- 
taneous   generation,    105, 

111 
Lecture  at  Faculty  of  Medicine, 

111 
Jouassain,     Mile.,     acts    in     Plai- 

deurs,  128 
Joubert,    professor    of    physics    at 

College    Rollin,    254,    265, 

269,  271 
Jourdan,   Gabrielle,   wife  of  Jean 

Henri  Pasteur,  2 
Journal  de   la   Medecine   et  de   la 

Chimie  quoted,  310 
Joux,   forest  of,   1 
Jupille,  J.  B.,  bitten  by  mad  dog, 

421 ;  inoculated,  422 


K 


Kaempfen,    director    of   fine   arts. 

Dole,  376 
Kestner,      produces      paratartaric 

acid,  26,  62,  65,  68 
Kitasato,    discovers    antitoxin    for 
diphtheria  455 
Studies  plague,  458 
Klebs,   discovers  bacillus  of  diph- 
theria, 454 
Klein,    Dr.,     pneumo-enteritis    of 

swine,  362 
Koch,  Dr.  : 

At  Thuillier's  funeral,  381 
Campaign  against  Pasteur,  357, 

359,  363,  367 
Finds    bacillus    of    tuberculosis, 

227 
On  bacillus  anthracis,  259,  260 
Studies  cholera,  379,  382 
Kuhn,   Chamalieres  brewer,  207 


INDEX 


475 


Laboratories,  42,  84,  153 

Lachadenede,  M.  de,  121,  171 

Lactic  fermentation,  83,  99 

Lagrange,  quoted  on  Lavoisier's 
execution,  195 

Lamartine,  36  and  note 

Lambert,  Fran9oise,  wife  of 
Claude  Etienne  Pasteur,  2 

Lamy,  Auguste,  161 

Landouzy,  on  ambulance  ward 
(1870),  235 

Lannelongue,  Dr.,  289,  391 

Laplace,  M.,  356 

Lapparent,  M.  de.  Chairman  of 
Commission  on  wine,  156, 
157 

Larrey  Baron,  309 

On    Jupille    and    Pasteur's    dis- 
covery, 423 
Surgery  under,  235,  240 

Laubespin,  Comte  de,  427 

Lauder-Brunton,  Dr.,  on  Commis- 
sion on  inoculation  for 
hydrophobia,  430 

Laurent,  August©,  55 
Sketch  of,  31,  33 

Laurent,  Madame,  47 

Laurent,  Maria.  (See  Pasteur, 
Mme.  Louis) 

Laurent,   M.,  Rector  of  Academy 
of  Strasburg,  47,  156 
Sketch  of,  47,  54 

Lavoisier,  death,  195 

Edition  of  his  works,  122 

Le  Bel,  studies  on  stereo-chem- 
istry, 445 

Le  Dantec,  studies  on  yellow 
fever  in  Brazil,  461 

Le   Fort,    Leon  : 

On  puerperal  fever,  290 
Surgery  under,  235,  270 

Le  Rous,  Dissertation  sur  la  Bage, 
407 

Le  Verrier,  129  note,  131 

Leblanc,  statistics  of  deaths  from 
hydrophobia,   428 

Lechartier,  M.,  104,  327 

Lefebvre,  General,  4 

Lefort,  Mayor  of  Arbois,  202 

Lemaire,  Jules,  prescribes  carbolic 
solution  for  wounds,  239 

Lemuy,  situation  of,  1 

Leplat,  experiments  on  anthrax, 
258,  261 

LerebouUet,  on  anthrax,  269 


Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  142 

Deputy  to  Edinburgh,  384 
Leval  Division  : 

At  Arcis-sur-Aube,  4 
At  Bar-sur-Aube,  3 
Lheritier,  candidate  for  Academie 

de  Medecine,  225 
Liberty  of  teaching,  law  on,  52 
Liebig  : 

Ideas  on  fermentation,  175,  215, 

222 
Interview  with  Pasteur,  176 
Theory  of  fermentation,  80,81,241 
Lille  : 

Pasteur  Dean  of  Faculte  at,  75 
Pasteur  Institute  at,  461 
Lister,  Sir  Joseph  : 

Appreciation  of  Pasteur,  252 
At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  449 
Letter  to  Pasteur,  238 
Method  of  surgery,  238,  239 
On    Commission    on    inoculation 

for   hydrophobia,   430 
Surgical  method,  187,  216 
Littre  : 

Medicine  and  Physicians,  294 
On  Microle,  267 
On  primary  causes,  244 
Sketch  of,  342 
LoefQer,   isolates  bacillus  of  diph- 
theria, 454 
Loir,  Adrien,  54,  58,  360,  362,  402 
Dean     of     Lyons      Faculty      of 

Science,  194 
Head      of      Pasteur      Institute, 
Tunis,  461 
London,  Pasteur  visits,  210 
London  Medical  Congress,  Pasteur 

at,  329 
London  Society  for  Protection  of 
Animals,     complaints     on 
vivisection,  336 
Longet,    Dr.,    Treatise    on   Physi- 
ology, 127 
Lons-le-Saulnier,  192,  248 
Louis  XI  introduces  mulberry  tree 

into  Touraine,  116 
Louis  XVI,  171 

Proposal  for  balloon  ascent,  405 
Lucas-Championniere,  Just  : 

Edits   Journal   de   la  Medecine, 

310 
On  dressing  of  wounds,  238 
Lycee  St.  Louis,  11,  21,  22 
Lyons,  Pasteur  at,  194 
Lyons     Commission     on     silkworm 
disease,  170 


476 


INDEX 


M 


MacDonald,  General,  4 

Magendie,  M.  : 

Experiment    with    rabic    blood, 

392 
Interview  with  Quaker,  334 

Maillot,  M.  : 

Accompanies  Pasteur  to  Milan, 

249 
Collaborates  with  Pasteur,  130, 
138,  166,  169 

Mairet,  Bousson  de,  sketch  of,  8 

Maisonneuve,  Dr.,  prescribes  car- 
bolic solution  for  wounds, 
239 

Malic  acid,  optical  study  of,  57, 
59 

Mains,  Etienne  Louis,  discovers 
polarization  of  light,   27 

Marat,  conduct  to  Lavoisier,  195 

Marchoux,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 

Marcou,  geologist,  161 

Marie,  Dr.,  attends  on  Pasteur, 
459 

Marie,  Grand  Duchess  of  Russia, 
141 

Marmier,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 

Marnoz,  Jean  Joseph  Pasteur  at,  6 

Martin,  M.  : 

Attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Collaborates  with  Roux,  455 
Lecture  on  diphtheria,  457 

Maternite,  mortality  at,  290 

Mathilde,   Princesse,  107 
Salon,  125 

Maucuer,  at  BoUene,  360 

Maunory,   M.,  284,  303 

Maury,  A.,  137 

Medici,  Catherine  de,  plants  mul- 
berry tree  in  Orleannais, 
116 

Medicine,  general  condition  (1873), 
226,  233 

Meissonier,  Knight  of  Legion  of 
Honour,  142 

Meister,  Joseph,  432 
Bitten  by  mad  dog,  414 
Inoculated,  415,  429 

Melun  Agricultural  Society,  trib- 
ute to  Pasteur,  350 

Melun,  experiment  on  vaccination 
of  anthrax  near,  314, 
316 

Mericourt,  Le  Roy  de,  225 

Mery,  on  anatomists,  226 

Mesnil,  M.  du,  163 

Attends  on  Pasteur,  459 


MetchnikoflE  : 

At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  448 
Directs  private  laboratories,  440 
Work  on  "  leucocytes,"  458 
Metz  surrendered,  185 
Meudon,    proposed   laboratory    at, 

398 
Mezieres,    mission    to    Edinburgh, 

384 
Michelet  quoted  on  his  friendship 

with  Poinsat,  18 
Microbe  : 

Rossignol  on,  314 
Word  invented,  266 
Microscope,    results    of    its    inven- 
tion, 90 
Mieges,    near    Nozeroy,     registers 

of,  1 
Milan    Congress    of    Sericiculture, 

Pasteur  at,  249 
Miller,  M.,  66 
Milne-Edwards  : 
At  Tuileries,  154 
On   Commission   on  spontaneous 

generation,  106 
Mina,  Espoz  y,  sketch  of,  3 
Mitscherlich,  chemist  and  crystal- 

lographer,  26 
In  Paris,  61 

Theory  of  fermentation,  241 
Moigno,     Abbe,     on     spontaneous 

generation,  112 
Molecular  dissymmetry,  38,  72,  88, 

199,  445 
Monge,  method  of  founding  cannon, 

195,  248 
Monod,  Henri,  quotes  Disraeli  on 

public  health,  446 
Montaigne   quoted    on   friendship, 

18 
Montalembert,     attitude     towards 

liberty  of  teaching,  52 
Montanvert,  97,  105 
Montpellier,  Pasteur  at,  353 
Montrond,  Pasteur  at,  192 
Moquin-Tandon,  on  Pasteur's  can- 
didature    for     Academic, 

100 
Morax,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Moreau,  Armand,  278,  279 
Moritz,  on  chicken  cholera,  297 
Morveau,  Guyton  de,  195,  248 
Mount     Poupet,     Pasteur    climbs, 

97 
Mouthe  Priory,  1 
Mucors,  Raulin's  experiments  on, 

204 
Mulberry  tree,  116 


INDEX 


477 


Musset,  Charles,  120,_  216,  255 
Demands    Commission    on    spon- 
taneous generation,  105 
New     Experimental     Researches 
on  Heterogenia,  94 

Mussy,  Dr.  Henry  Gueneau  de  : 
Congratulates  Pasteur,  337 
Deputy  to  Edinburgh,   384 
Paper  on  contagium  germ,  263 

Mussy,  Dr.  Noel  Guineau  de,  160 

Mycoderma,  101,  128 

Mycoderma  aceti,  148,  215,  230 

Mycoderma  vini,  218,  219,  230 


N 

Napoleon  I  : 

At  Fontainebleau,  4 
Respect  for  Science,  195 
Restores  silk  industry,   116 
Napoleon  III  : 

Distributes    eshibition    rewards, 

141 
Grants    laboratory    to    Pasteur, 

147 
Interest    in     sericiculture,     128, 

133,  174 
Interview  with  Pasteur,  104 
Invites   Pasteur    to    Compiegne, 

127 
Leaves  Sedan  and  Paris,  181 
Letter  on  Pasteur's  laboratory, 

162 
Summons  scientists  to  Tuileries, 
154 
Napoleon,  Prince,  interviews  with 

Pasteur,  436 
National  Testimonials,  245 
Naumann,  Dr.  Maurice,  197 

Professor  of  mineralogy,  286 
Needham,  partisan  of  spontaneous 

generation,  90 
Nelaton,  on  surgery  (1870),  236 
Ney,  General,  4 

Nicolle,  Dr.,  laboratory  of  bacteri- 
ology   at    Constantinople, 
461 
Niepce,    national    testimonial    to, 

245 
Nimes,  Pasteur  at,  352,  354 
Nisard,  Professor  : 

Academic  sponsor    for    Pasteur, 

344 
Director  of  Ecole  Normale,   84, 

143 
Letters  to  Pasteur,  119,  303 
Sketch  of,  345 


Nocard,  M.,  307 

Goes  to  Alexandria,  379 
On  hydrophobia,  403,  409 


O 


Oersted  and  modern  telegraph,  76 
"  Ordonnances,"  8  and  note. 
Orleans,      Pasteur      lectures      on 

vinegar  at,  148 
Oudinot,  General,  4 
Ovariotomy,  fatal  results  of,  235 


Pages,   Dr.,  Mayor  of  Alais,    121, 

172 
Paget,  Sir  James  : 
At     Copenhagen     Medical    Con- 
gress, 399 
President  of  Commission  on  ino- 
culation for  hydrophobia, 
430 
Speech  at  Medical  Congress,  330 
Paillerols,  near  Digne,  169 
Panum,  President  of  Copenhagen 

Medical  Congress,  399 
Parandier,  M.,  43 
Paratartaric    (racemic)     acid,    26, 
38,  41,  62 
Pasteur  in  search  of,  63  seqq. 
Pareau,  Mayor  of  Arbois,  13 
Parieu,  M.  de,  Minister  of  Public 

Instruction,  54 
Paris  : 

Bombarded,  188 
Capitulation,  193 
Prepares  for  siege,  188 
Parmentier  on  potato,  171 
Pasteur,    Camille,   119,   121,    123 
Pasteur,   Cecile,   130 
Pasteur,  Claude,  1 

Marriage  contract,   1 
Pasteur,  Claude  Etienne,  2 

Enfranchised,  2 
Pasteur,    Denis,    marries    Jeanne 

David,  1 
Pasteur  Hospital,  project  for,  464 
Pasteur  Institute  : 

Annals  of,  434,  435,  457 
Founded,  428 
Inauguration,   440 
Scholarships,  452 
Trocadero  fete  for,  431 
Pasteur,   Jean    Henri,    at    Besan- 
9on,  2 


478 


INDEX 


Pasteur,  Jean  Joseph,  250 

Character,  7,  22,  58 

Conscript,  3 

Death,  118 

In  Paris,  12,  57 

Marriage,   5 

Sergeant-major,  4 

Studies,  31 
Pasteur,  Jeanne,  death  of,  86,  118 
Pasteur,  Josephine,  18,  30,  50 
Pasteur,  Louis  : 

Administration    of    Ecole    Nor- 
male,  84,  109,  112 

Advice  to  Paul  Dalimier,  109 

Advice  to  Raulin,  203 

Article  on  Claude  Bernard's 
works,  134 

—  indifference  of  public  authori- 

ties, 151 

—  Lavoisier,  122,  124 

At  Arbois,  7,  180,  420,  437 

—  Besan9on    Royal    College,    14 

seqq. 

—  Bordeaux,  339 

—  Compiegne,  127 

—  Copenhagen      Medical      Con- 

gress, 398 
Speech,  399 

—  Geneva  Congress  of  Hygiene, 

358 

—  London      Medical     Congress, 

357 
Lecture,  331,  337 

—  Milan  Congress  of  Sericicul- 

ture,  250 
Speech,  251 

—  Villa  Vicentina,  173 

—  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  462 
Birth,  6 

Candidate  for  Academy  of 
Sciences,  81,  100 

Candidature  for  Senate,  247 

Characteristics,  9,  10,  12,  15,  22, 
23,  25,  32,  60,  151,  223, 
246,  252,  295,  325,  462 

Chemistry  and  Physics  theses, 
34 

Consulted  on  inoculation  for 
peripneumonia,  350 

Criticism  of  Bernard's  posthu- 
mous notes,  281,  287 

Curator  in  Balard's  laboratory, 
32 

Crystallographic   researches,   26, 
38,  57,  60,  445 
Lecture  on,  102 

Dean  of  Lille  Faculte,  75,  249 

Death,  464 


Pasteur,   Louis   (continued)  : 
Delegation  to,  354 
Deputy  to  Edinburgh,  384 

Speech,  386 
Discovers  constitution    of    para- 

tartaric  acid,  39 
Discussion  with  Bastian,  253 
Dispute  with  Eammelsberg,  102 
Experiments  on  atmospheric  air, 

93  seqq. 
Friendship  for  Charles  Chappuis, 

18,  20,   22, 
Grand      Cross      of     Legion      of 

Honour,  326 
His  masters,  145,  252 
His    name    given   to   district   in 

Canada  and  to  village  in 

Algeria,  451 
His  teaching,  77,  79 
Illness,  433,  439,  446,  458,  464 

Watchers,  459,  462 
In  hospitals,  289,  291 

—  London,  210 

—  Paris,  11,  20,  57 

—  Strasburg,  45,  177 
Influence  of  his  labours,  445 
Influence  of  Oxygen  on  Develop- 
ment of  Yeast,  221 

Interview  with  Biot,  41 

—  Liebig,  176 

—  Mitscherlich  and  Rose,  61 

—  Napoleon  III,  104,  128 
Jubilee  celebration,  447 

Speech,  450 
Knight    of    Legion    of    Honour, 

70 
Laboratory  (new),  157,  162,  164, 

194,  232,  445 
Laureat  of  Exhibition,  140 
Lecture  on  germ  theory,  271 
Lectures  on  vinegar  at  Orleans, 

148 
Letters,  23,  24,  28 

On   experiment    at   Pouilly   le 

Fort,  322,  323 
To  Bellotti,  207 

—  Chappuis  on  Lille  Faculty, 

77 

—  Dumas,  141,  166,  250 

—  Duruy,  131 

—  Emperor  of  Brazil,  404 

—  Jupille,  427 

—  Laurent,  48 

—  Napoleon  III,  146 

—  Raulin,  199 

—  Sainte  Beuve,  126 
M.D.  of  Bonn,  154 

Returns  diploma,  189,  190,  197 


INDEX 


479 


Pasteur,  Louis  (continued)  : 

Marks   of   gratitude   from   agri- 
culturists, 372 
Marriage,  51 
Medal    from    Society   of  French 

Agricultors,  312 
Member   of  Academie  de  Mede- 
cine,  225 
Speech,  241,  242,  243 

—  Academie    des    Sciences,  103, 

272 

—  Academie  Frangaise,  341,  345 
Memorial     plate     on     house     at 

Dole,  376 
National  testimonial,   245 
Obtains  racemic  acid,  69 
Offered   professorship     at    Pisa, 

200 
On  chicken  cholera,  299,  308 

—  Littre  and  Positivism,  342 

—  Science  and  religion,  244 

—  Scientific        supremacy        of 

Prance,  195 

—  Vaccine,  309,  311 

of    anthrax,   311,   312 

—  Experiment,    314,    317,    318, 

320,  323,  367 
Results,  325 
Paper  on  Plague,  301 
Paralytic  stroke,  160,  439 
Pastel  drawings,  12,  20, 
Pension  augmented,  374 
Permanent  Secretary  of  Acade- 
mie des  Sciences,  439 
Portraits,  439 
Professor    of   Chemistry,     Stras- 

burg,   45 
Professor   of   Physics    at  Dijon, 

42 
Proposed  studies,  198 
Refuses  German  decoration,  461 
Reply  to  Dumas,  355 
"Researches     on    Dimorphism," 

36 
Researches        on        spontaneous 

generation,  87  seqq.,  216, 

222,  277 
Lecture  at  Sorbonne  on,  106 
Speech  on,  242 
Researches   on   stereo-chemistry, 

445 
Science's  Budget,  153 
Scientific  Annals  of  Ecole  Nor- 

male,  110 
Searches  for  his  son,  192 
Solicitude  for  patients,  416,  425, 

427 
Speech  at  Aubenas,  351 


Pasteur,  Louis  (continued)  : 

Speech  at  inauguration  of  Insti- 
tute, 442 
Speech  on  Deville,  327 
Speech  on  Joseph  Bertrand,  419, 

426 
Studies  beer,  207  seqq.,  219,  229, 
232,  282,  285 
Book  on,  214,  219,  339 

—  Cholera,  126 

—  Contagious        diseases,       224 

seqq. 

—  Fermentations,  79,  83,  85,  99, 

113,  224,  240 

—  Hydrophobia,   318,   363,   383, 

390   seqq. 
Inoculates  dogs,  395,  410 
Inoculates  Joseph  Meister,  416 
Inoculates  Jupille,  422 

—  Silkworm   Disease,  117,    120, 

129,  139,   155,    168 

—  on  Wine,  113,  158,  283 
Book  on,  133 

— ■  Rouget  of  pigs,  360 
Report  on,  362 

—  Splenic  fever,  257,   259,  275, 

284 
Travels     in    search    of    racemic 

acid,  62  seqq. 
Trephines  dog,  318 
Turin     veterinary     school     and, 

367,  371 
Vintage  tour,  104 
Visitors,  420 
Visits  Duclaux,  206 
Pasteur,    Madame    Louis,    49,    52, 
59,  103,  160,  172,  432,  459 
Goes  to  Alais,  130 
Letters    to    daughter,   318,  322, 
325,  396 
Paul,    St.    Vincent    de,    Life    of, 

463 
Payen,  paper  on  beer,  208 
Pecquet,  discoveries  through  vivi- 
section, 336 
Peers  of  France,  30  note 
Pelletier,    Louise,    bitten  by    mad 

dog,  425 
Pellico,   Silvio,   Miei  prigioni,  16 
Pelouze,  M.,  335 
Penicillium  glaucum,  204,  230 
Perdrix,  at  Pasteur  Jubilee,  448 
Perraud,  J.  J.,  bust  at  Monay  to, 

421 
Perreyve,  Henri,  on  Poland,  184 
Perroncito,  on  microbe  of  chicken 

cholera,  297 
Perrot,  deputy  to  Edinburgh,  384 


480 


INDEX 


Persoz,     Professor    of    Chemistry, 
Strasburg,  45 

Peter  M.  : 

Dispute  with  Pasteur,  364,  366, 

369,  370 
On  antirabic  cure,  434 

Philomathic  Society,  Pasteur  mem- 
ber of,  102 

Phthisis,  theory  of,  227 

Phylloxera,  295 

Physicians,        attitude        towards 
chemists,  224,  233 

Picard,    General,    candidature  for 
Senate,  249 

Pidoux  and  Trousseau,    Traits   de 
Therapeutique,  224 

Pidoux,  Dr.  : 
On  disease,  227 
On  tuberculosis,  227 

Pierrefonds  Castle  restored,  127 

Pierron,  on  Laurent  at  Riom,  47 

Piorry,   Dr.  : 

On  disease  and  patient,  264 
On  tuberculosis,  228 

Pisa,  Pasteur  offered  professorship 
at,  200 

Pitt,  on  vote  to  Jenner,  374,  375 

Plague  bacillus  discovered,  457 

Plague,  Pasteur's  paper  on,  301 

Plaideurs  acted  at  Compiegne,  128 

Plenisette  village,  1 

Pliny  the  Elder,  remedy  for  hydro- 
phobia, 407 

Poggiale,    speech    on    spontaneous 
generation,  242 

Pointurier,  M.,  12 

Polarization  of  light,  27 

Polignac,  Cardinal  of,  Anti-Lucre- 
tius, 90 

Poligny,  192 

Sous-pr6fet  of,  9. 

Polytecimician,  43  note 

Pontarlier,  retreat  to,  192 

Posit  ivist  doctrine,  342 

Potatoes,  prejudice  against,  171 

Pottcvin,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 

Pouchet,  M.,  98,  104,  138,  216,  255 
ISlote   on   Verjetahle  and  Animal 

Proto-organisms,  92 
The  Universe,  214 
Theory  of  fermentation,  241 

Pouillet,  Professor    of   Phvsics    at 
Sorbonne,  27,  29,  43 

Pouilly  le  Fort,  experiment  on  vac- 
cination  of   anthrax,   315, 
316,  317,  319,  323 
Results,  324 

Prague,  Pasteur  at,  66 


Prevot,  at  Villeneuve  I'Etang,  462 
Primary  teaching,  law  on  reorga- 
nization, 140 
Prince  Imperial,   Villa  Vicentina, 

173 
Prix  de  Borne,  191  note 
Prix  Montyon,  16  note 
Provost,  acts  in  Plaideurs,  128 
Provostaye,  de  la,  work  on  crystal- 
lography, 33,  38 
Prussia,  Crown  Prince  of,  141 
Puerperal  fever,  290  seqq. 
Puiseux,  Professor    of    Science  at 

Besan9on,  45 
Putrefaction,  104 


Q 

Quain,  Dr.,  on  Commission  on 
inoculation  for  hydro- 
phobia, 430 

Quatrefages,  essay  on  history  of 
silkworm,  116 

Queyrat,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 

Rabies  and  hydrophobia,  409 
Rabies,  Commission.     (  See  under 

Hydrophobia) 
Rabourdin,  M.,  284 
Racemic.     [See  Paratartaric  acid) 
Raibaud-Lange,  M.,  169 
Rammelsberg,   dispute    with    Pas- 
teur, 102 
Randon,  General,  166 
Raspail,     F.     V.,     researches     on 

origin  of  itch,  374 
Rassmann,    Dr.,    obtains    racemic 

acid,  67 
Raulin,    Jules,   93,    130,    161,    166, 

173,  209 
Accompanies  Pasteur  to  Milan, 

250 
Sketch  of,  204 
Raulin's  liquid,  205 
Ravaisson,  F.,  137 
Rayer,  on  charbon  blood,  258 
Raynaud,  Dr.  Maurice,  289 

On  hydrophobia,  391 
Reaudin,     Auguste,      on     Lister's 

methods,  239 
R«clus,  Dr.,  on  purulent  infection, 

237 
Reculfoz  village,  1 
Redi,    Francesco,     experiment    on 

spontaneous       generation, 

89 


INDEX 


481 


Redtenbacher,  M.,  66 
"Regiment  Dauphin,"  4 
Regnault,  Henri,  50,  59 

Death,  191 
Regnier  acts  in  Plaideurs,  128 
Renan,  E.,  137 

On  state  of  France,  199 
Quoted  from  Bevue  Germanique 

110 
Sketch  of,  348 

Speech  to  Pasteur  on  hydropho- 
bia, 390 
Welcomes  Pasteur   to   Academie 
Frangaise,   346 
Renaud,  M.,  7 
Renault,    experiments    with    rabic 

blood,  392 
Rencluse,  105 

Renon,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Repecaud,    Headmaster    of    Royal 

College,  Besangon,  14 
Rhenish  provinces,   189 
Richet,  Dr.,  455 
Rigault,    lectures    at    College    de 

France,  82 
Robin,  Charles,   sketch  of,  124 
Rochard,  Dr.,  on  plague,  303 
Rochette,  Baron  de  la,  sketch  of, 

314 
Rochieder,  professor  of  chemistry, 

Prague,  67 
Roger,  on  Pasteur's  services,  245 
RoUin  College,   experiments  in  la- 
boratory at,  411,  415,  432 
Romanet,    Headmaster    of    Arbois 

College,  9,  13,  30,  36 
Romieu,  sketch  of,  53 
"Rouget"    of   pigs   (swine  fever), 

360,  362 
Roqui,  Jean  Claude,  6 
Roqui,  Jeanne  Etiennette,  wife  of 
Jean  Joseph  Pasteur,  6,  7 
Death,  40 
Roscoe,    Sir    Henry,    on    Commis- 
sion    on     inoculation     for 
hydrophobia,    430 
Rose,      G.,      crystallographer,      in 

Paris,  61 
Rossignol,  M.  : 

Article   in    Veterinary  Press  on 

microbe,  313 
Vaccination  of  sheep  against  an- 
thrax  and,   315,   321,   323 
Rotz,  Pasteur  medal,  447 
Rouher,  at  Tuileries,  154 
Roux,    Dr.  : 

Account  of  Thuillier's  death,  381 
At  Pasteur  Jubilee,  448 


Roux,  Dr.  (continued)  : 
Attends  Pasteur,  459 
Collaborates  with  Pasteur,   289, 
291,    303,    305,    308,    317, 
318,    321,    338,    359,    372, 
393,  420,  424 
Cross  of  Legion  of  Honour,  326 
Goes  to  Alexandria,  379 
Inoculates  horse  with  diphtheri- 
tic toxin,  455 
Lectures  on  diphtheria,  456 
Lectures  on  technical  microbia, 

440 
Lecture    to    London    Royal    So- 
ciety,  454 
On  Pasteur's  medical  work,  283 
Performs  inoculations,  432 
Sketch  of,  233 
Studies    diphtheria,    453 
Roziers,  Pilatre  de,  balloon  ascent, 

405 
Russian  mujiks  bitten  by  wolf,  429 

S 

Saccharimeter,  28 
Sadowa,  battle  of,  178 
Sainte  Beuve  : 

Letters  to  Pasteur,  125 
On  Biot's  character,  56 
Opinion  of  Joseph  Droz,  14 
Pasteur  attends  his  lectures,  123 
Philosophy,  123 
Speech  at  Senate,  143 
St.  Dizier,  4 

St.  Hippolyte  la  Fort,  165,  174 
St.  Victor,  Paul  de,  on  Germany, 

188 
Salimbeni,    treatise    on    sericicul- 

ture,  159 
Salins,  97 

Claude  Etienne  Pasteur  settles 
at,  2 
Sand,  George,  107 
Sandeau,  Jules,  127 
Sanderson,   Professor   Burden,    on 
Commission     on     inocula- 
tion for  hydrophobia,  431 
Sarcey,  Francisque,  37 
Saussure,  Theodore  de,  100 
Sauton,  speech  at  Pasteur  Jubilee, 

449 
Say,  Leon,  Pasteur's  reply  to,  417 
Scheele  discovers  tartaric  acid,  26 
Schrotter,  Professor,  66 
Schwann,  Dr.,  observations  on  fer- 
mentations,  80 
Science  and  Religion,  244 
I  I 


482 


INDEX 


Scientists  meet  at  Tuileries,  154 

Sedan,  181 

Sedillot,  Dr.  : 

Correspondence  of  Institute,  186 
Sketch  of,  266 

Senarmont,  M.  de,  50,  58,  59,  101 
Advice  to  Pasteur,  69 
Confidence  in  Pasteur,  89 

Septicaemia,  229,  234,  263,  308,  368 

Seriana  village,  Algeria,   451 

Sericiculture,  115 

Serotlierapy.     (^^ee  Diphtheria) 

Serres,  Olivier  de,  172 
Statue  to,  350,  352 
Thedtre  d' Agriculture,  172 
Treatise    on    Gathering  of   Silh, 
116,  120 

Seybel,  M.,  66 

Signol,  experiments,  262 

Silkworm   disease,    116  seqq,,   139, 
155,  156,  168 
Lyons  Commission  on,  170 

Simon,  Jules,  144,  418 

At  inauguration  of  Pasteur  In- 
stitute, 441 
On  Ecole  Normale,   23 

Sorbonne,   21   note,    146 
Inauguration  of  new,  446 
Pasteur  Jubilee  celebration,  447 

Spallanzani,  Abbe,  experiments  on 
animalculpe,  91 

Splenic     fever      (charbon).       (See 
Anthrax) 

Spontaneous  generation,  87  seqq., 
216,  222,  227,  232,  277 
Commission  on,  106,  111 
Pasteur's    lecture    at    Sorbonne 
on,    106 

Stoffel,   Colonel   Baron,    155 

Strasburg,  Pasteur  at,  45,  71 

Strasburg  arsenal,  179,  185 

Strasburg  University,  189 

Straus,    M.  : 

Goes  to  Alexandria,  379 
On  Cholera  Commission,  382 

Sully,  opposes  silk  industry,  116 

SuUy-Prudhomme,  love  of  France, 
191 

Supt  village,  2 

Surgery  before  Pasteur,  234  seqq. 

Susani,  S.,  250 

Swine  fever.     (See  Rouget  of  pigs) 

T 

Talmy,  Dr.,  at  Bordeaux,  339 
Tamisier,  candidature  for  Senate, 
249 


Tantonville  brewery,  213 
Tarnier,  Dr.,  289 

On  puerperal  fever,  289 
Tartaric  acid,  constitution  of,  26, 

38 
Teaching  : 

Law  on  liberty  of,  52 
Law  on  primary,  140 
Terrillon,  Dr.,  432 
Thenard,  Baron,  59,  356 

Sketch  of,  45 
Thierry,    M.,    at    Pouilly    le    Fort 

experiment,  316,  319 
Thiers,  M.  : 

Letter  to  Pasteur,  144 
On  bravery  of  3rd  Regiment,  3 
Third  Regiment  of  Line,  3 
"Regiment  Dauphin,"   4 
Thorwaldsen      Museum,      Copen- 
hagen, 402 
Thuillier,  Louis,  317 

Collaborates  with  Pasteur,   357, 

359,    360,    362 
Death,   380 

Goes  to  Alexandria,  379 
Studies  hydrophobia,  391 
Thurel,    candidature    for    Senate, 

249 
Tieserand,   M.,   354 

Director  of  Ci-own  Agricultural 

establishments,    173 
On  Commission  on  hydrophobia, 
395 
Toscanelli,  S.,  200,  201 
Toul,   on   second   line  of   fortifica- 
tions, 179 
Tourtel    brewery    at    Tantonville, 

213 
Toussaint,    professor    at    Toulouse 
Veterinary     School,     264, 
284 
Studies      microbe      of      chicken 

cholera,  297 
Vaccinates     sheep    against     an- 
thrax, 306,  307 
Traube,    Dr.,   on   ammoniacal   fer- 
mentation, 232 
Trecul,  Dr.,  230 

On  heterogenesis,  216,  218 
Theory  of  fermentation,  241 
Trelat,  Dr.,  surgeon  at  Maternite, 
290 
On  Commission  of  Hygiene,  186 
Trocadero  fete  for  Pasteur  Insti- 
tute,   431 
Troost,  M.,  327 

Trousseau  and  Pidoux,  Traiti  de 
Therapeutique,  224 


INDEX 


483 


Trousseau,  Dr.  : 

Lecture  on  ferments  quoted,  229 

On  diphtheria,   453 

On  puerperal  fever,  290 
Tsar,  sends  Cross  of  St.   Anne  of 

Russia  to  Pasteur,  430 
Tuberculosis,  researches  on,  227 
Tuileries,  scientists  meet  at,   164 
Tunis,  Pasteur  Institute  at,  461 
Turin  Veterinary  School  and  Pas- 
teur, 368,  371 
Tyndall,  Professor  : 

Dust  and  Diseases,  239 

Letter  to  Pasteur,  353 
Typhoid  fever,  medical  methods  of 
treating,  364 

U 

Udressier,  Claude  Fran9oi8,  Count 
of,  1 

Udressier,       Philippe-Marie-Fran- 
9ois,  Count  of,  2 

Universite,  44  note,  155 

University   of  Edinburgh,  Tercen- 
tenary,  384 
Degrees,   385 


Vaccination,  300,   309,  811 
Against  anthrax,  312 

Experiment,     314,     317,     318, 

320,   328,   367 
Results,  325 
Against  swine  fever,  382 
Vaillant,  Field-Marshal,  142,  168 
At  Tuileries,  154 
Silkworm  nursery,  173 
Vallisneri,     medical    professor    of 

Padua,  90 
Van  Helmont,   recipe  for  produc- 
ing mice,  89 
Van     t'HofI,     studies     on    stereo- 
chemistry, 445 
Van  Tieghem,  217,  232 
Vauquelin,  tanning  process,  29 
Veillon,  attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Velpeau  : 

On  diphtheria,  453 
On  pin  prick,  234 
Venasque   Pass,    105 
Vercel,  Jules,  7,  36,  97,  192,  266 
Accompanies    Pasteur   to   Paris, 
10 
Verneuil,  M.  : 

On  antirabic  cure,   434 
On  surgery  (1870),  236 


Vescovato,  169 
Veuillot,  Louis,   36 

On  liberty  of  teaching,  53 
Viala,   Eugene  : 

Attends  on  Pasteur,  459 
Preparations     for     inoculations, 

424 
Sketch  of,  402 
Vialla,  M.,  Vice-President  of  Agri- 
cultural    Society,     Mont- 
pellier,  353 
Vicat,  national  testimonial  to,  245 
Villa   Vicentina,   lUyria,   173 
Villemin,  Dr.  : 

Advises    Pasteur    to    winter    in 

south,    433,    434 
At   experiment   on    earthworms, 

304 
On  Commission  on  hydrophobia, 

395 
On    contagion    of    tuberculosis, 

367 
Researches  on  tuberculosis,  226, 
227 
Villeneuve  I'Etang,  branch  estab- 
lishment of  laboratory  at, 
398,  406,  410 
Stables,  463 
Villers-Farlay,  Mayor  of,  writes  to 

Pasteur,  421 
Vinegar,      Pasteur      lectures      on 

manufacture  of,  148 
Virchow,   Professor  : 

At  Copenhagen     Medical     Con- 
gress,   399 
At  Edinburgh,  386 
On  anti-vivisection,  332 
Virulent    Diseases — Chicken    Cho- 
lera, 298 
Virus  ferments,  223  seqq. 
Vivisection  : 

Discoveries  made  through,  337 
Virchow  on,   332 
Volta,    S.,   195 
Voltaire  : 

Philosophic     Dictionary    quoted 

on  God,  92 
Singularities   of  Nature,  92 
Vone,  Theodore,  consults  Pasteur, 

414 
Vulpian,   278 

Champions  Pasteur,  435,  436 
Death,   438 

On    Brand's    treatment    of    ty- 
phoid, 365 
On  Commission  on  hydrophobia, 

395 
Pasteur   consults,   415 


484 


INDEX 


Vulpian   (continued)  : 

Speech  on  Pasteur's  experiments 
on  hydrophobia,  422,  438 


W 


Wales,  Prince  of,   141 

Wallace,  Sir  Richard,  founds  dogs' 

cemetery  at  Bagatelle,  411 
Wasserzug,  Etienue,  interprets  for 

Pasteur,   424 
Weber,  Dr.,  advises  Mme.  Meister 

to  consult  Pasteur,  414 
William,   King  of   Prussia,   meets 

Napoleon,  182 
Wine,  studies  on,  113,  158 
Wissemburg,    178 
Wolf -bites,      statistics      of     death 

from,  430 


Wurtz  : 

Laboratory,  42 

On  Commission  of  Hygiene,  186 


Yeast,   80 

Pasteur's    paper    on,    221,    230. 
(See  also  Fermentation) 
Yellow  fever,  Pasteur  studies,  338 
Yersin,  Dr.  : 

Studies  diphtheria,   453 
Studies   plague    in     China,   458, 
461 
Younger,     welcomes     Pasteur     to 
Edinburgh,  38 


Zevort,  M.,  47,  130 
Zimmern,  sous-prefecture,  189 


R.    CLAY   AND   SONS,    LTD.,   BEF.AD   STREET   HILT.,    E.C.,  AND   BUNGAY,  SUFFOLK. 


DATE  DUE 

AllGl  fi  ?QOZ 

SEP    6Z( 

I02 

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SEP- 

0*1 

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R  507.P26  V24  1909  C.1 

The  life  of  Pasfeuf,,(,,,,,„,,,Mn„,,,,,|iiii|ii|iiiii| 


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